Wisdom is a value, a virtue, to be attained by increasing exposure to a wider range of conscious states, experiences, situations, cultures, positions, professions, and knowledge, over time. Experience directed upon analyzation of one’s own experience, and in contemplation of causality, whether leading up to retrospective actions and situations, or extrapolated into the future, aids in the development of optimizing the mode of Being which is able to produce actions in alignment with what would be most optimal, for the individual, and his expanding circle of influence. While wisdom can increase in any individual, it is modified to a more comprehensive optimizing of situational reciprocity due to genetic factors, personality traits, and intelligence. All things considered equal, we will continue in an abstract and generalized way, although acquisition and implementation will be modified by the before stated factors.

Through persevering voluntarily into the unknown, in exploring what is most remote from your own experience, you most expand your wisdom. The wider range of experiences one is able to experience, explore, and analyze, with an eye towards the best way of handling and climbing the hierarchy intrinsic to said realm of experience, enables us to become more competent over that aspect of reality, increasing wisdom. It isn’t merely experience directed in arbitrary directions, but rather those areas which rationally are conducive to one’s uncovered value structure, in what is significantly meaningful. Whether the areas of significant meaning are those that are pleasurable, and conducive to one’s nature, or they are areas that incite fear, or anxiety, the optimal directedness towards both and in deciphering which paths ought to be carried down, for further competency in a skill, or toward a greater improvement in virtue and character traits, is the role of wisdom itself to learn how to navigate.  Knowing better modes of Being in relation to circumstances, better articulation and modification of speech depending on the audience, in intentioned thinking that is in alignment with one’s aims, as they apply to different situations, is the hallmark of the wise man over the fool, and improving in these domains should be of utmost importance to any human. Due to the applicability of wisdom to better or worse optimize our subjective experience regardless of the situation, in handling the set of all problems, in general, it ought to be our highest value. In properly orienting ourselves towards our aims, integrating our psyche, and providing a meaningful life, the domain of wisdom covers all experience, and its improvement is of utmost importance to the set of not only all problems, but all experience.

The tricky part of wisdom is not only developing competence in a range of different aspects or states of mind, but in knowing which aspects, activities, experiences, are worth spending the time developing competence within. Thus, wisdom has an exponentially beneficial result for the individual, as we gain more experience in an array of different functions, we are able to better determine which aspects of life are most important to invest our time into developing, and as we know which aspects of life are most important to develop in, we can increase our competency and concentrate on the areas which are of highest importance. There is a positive feedback loop in this development, which is why we all should aim at increasing our wisdom, in trying new things, in exploring the unexplored, and constantly be scrutinizing our experiences to learn from mistakes and to correct ourselves. For a more comprehensive look at the optimality of developing a system of ethics based upon “wisdom ethics” and its differentiation and utility over that of utilitarianism and virtue ethics, see the essay “Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics, and Wisdom Ethics”.