I was about 22, working with a head of community education called Fred. We were trying to work out how to set up a local day support service for young people with a learning disability who lived nearby. We had no money and limited support from our respective employers. I can’t remember what I said, or why, but suddenly I had worked out how we could do this. To which Fred said, “Jim you have wisdom beyond your years.” I didn’t really know what he was talking about. I also couldn’t know that the service Fred and I set up would still be going strong today – from some daft idea I had about how to fund it.
So what does wisdom mean to me? I don’t think it’s something you are born with or acquire through a lifetime of study. Wise is something you become by listening, observing patiently, gathering knowledge of different sources, then bundling them all up and using all of those different things to find ways to do and make things better.
There is no such thing as a person or AI that can ever possess all the wisdom in the world. Wisdom requires the use of all of your senses all of the time. The most important thing is to be able to generously share your thinking with everyone – with no need to tell everybody where that wisdom came from, or to take any control over what happens next. In some ways a bit like Chaos Theory.
Something I have always tried to do – bring wisdom and Chaos Theory into everyday thinking.
Since writing this, I’ve been in conversations with one of my friends, Charlie, who suggested that another important feature of wisdom is common sense.
Jim Thomas
August 2025
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