thanks Safwan! I enjoyed your post. I think you’re framing of knowledge as a subset of wisdom makes a ton of sense. In my view, they seem to be different things where one is built on action, and the other is built on study, of sorts. That said, they are certainly interlinked, because you cannot just perform actions without a baseline guidance, and that’s probably where knowledge comes in. I wrote about this briefly a while back: https://open.substack.com/pub/brownfox/p/knowledge-instructs-wisdom-encourages?r=2urhn&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
In this case, think I prefer my fictional expression of the idea over my essay :) It’s best to be able to come to the same idea with different angles.
Ah, I couldn’t agree more! In fact that is sort of a foundational belief for me. The Little Prince is my favorite book of all time, and I believe it teaches adults (not just kids!) far more than so many of the best-seller self-help books that popularity contests tell us to read. I have learned so much more from the great fictional classics of old than I have from these new books that barely are a decade old. Re-reading Animal Farm, Candide, etc teaches and connects with me so much more. And that’s what motivated me to write my book of fables, and now publishing them here. I think society has sort of forgotten the value of old classics, folklore, mythology—gems of wisdom that society left to help us navigate the world. Hoping to play my part in reviving it (I want to share more old stories too, in addition to my own originals).
Adults deserve to learn from stories too, not just nonfiction books!
Wonder, Shades of Gray, and A Thousand Splendid Suns are a few other of my philosophical favorites - even if they don't deal with ideology directly. Thanks for Candide - I hadn't heard of it before.
> Adults deserve to learn from stories too, not just nonfiction books!
I'm actually still a teenager, and have been reading since I could hold a book in my hand.
Wow, wonderful that you've built a reading habit so early in life. I read novels when I was younger (The Odyssey, Fifth Business were my favorites) but I wouldn't say I was an avid reader until later in life. (I'm in my late 30s now.) My parents are from Hyderabad, India, and I've kind of lived all over the place. Was born in the Middle East, went to high school and university in Canada, and now live in California (also spent a couple years in NYC, and a few summers in Cape Town, South Africa.) So, I've been around 😅
thanks Gary! You’re spot on that it started with an idea around contrasting wisdom and knowledge. I wrote about it once in a newsletter (https://letter.salman.io/p/knowledge-instructs-wisdom-encourages?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web), and I’ve always felt like the real key to the idea is that wisdom is on the other side of action. It’s fun to look at how to express these ideas through essays as well as stories.
I plan to keep publishing more fables like this in future, and they’ll just show up in the podcast as new episodes. You can also view the prior fables in the archive: https://letter.salman.io/s/modern-fables. The Substack app lets you play audio narrations of them even if I didn’t record one.
I’d love if you could test the podcast experience and play this story with your kids and let me know how it goes! (You can always email me at contact@salman.io). I always love hearing feedback from kids, their brutal honesty cannot be matched 😅
Thank you so much for reading, and for your feedback!
thanks, Chris! I really like it too. I feel like I vaguely remember a line maybe from a movie where it was a sentence with two parts and the second part “made them wise.” It’s funny how inspiration, even when blurry and fuzzy, can influence what we create.
Yay! Thank you. it’s great to hear the positive feedback on the illustration, because I’ve been choosing to stick with a more scratchy style that I like. In other words, not going the next level of polishing and clean lines. Now that I know that this style has appeal with the audience to, not just me, it’s pretty liberating, so I can publish more additions with an illustration.
This was a great read (though I listened to it first on Spotify). Excited for more of these!
Thanks man! That's awesome that you listened on Spotify first. Gives me motivation to keep doing narrations for these!
Great story! Coincidentally, I wrote something related recently: https://open.substack.com/pub/humanpolitics/p/are-knowledge-and-wisdom-related?r=1tca2f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
thanks Safwan! I enjoyed your post. I think you’re framing of knowledge as a subset of wisdom makes a ton of sense. In my view, they seem to be different things where one is built on action, and the other is built on study, of sorts. That said, they are certainly interlinked, because you cannot just perform actions without a baseline guidance, and that’s probably where knowledge comes in. I wrote about this briefly a while back: https://open.substack.com/pub/brownfox/p/knowledge-instructs-wisdom-encourages?r=2urhn&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
In this case, think I prefer my fictional expression of the idea over my essay :) It’s best to be able to come to the same idea with different angles.
This is philosophy :) - different interpretations are crucial to the field!
About fiction: I've found that fiction teaches me far more about life than "formal" study does. It indeed is very important.
Ah, I couldn’t agree more! In fact that is sort of a foundational belief for me. The Little Prince is my favorite book of all time, and I believe it teaches adults (not just kids!) far more than so many of the best-seller self-help books that popularity contests tell us to read. I have learned so much more from the great fictional classics of old than I have from these new books that barely are a decade old. Re-reading Animal Farm, Candide, etc teaches and connects with me so much more. And that’s what motivated me to write my book of fables, and now publishing them here. I think society has sort of forgotten the value of old classics, folklore, mythology—gems of wisdom that society left to help us navigate the world. Hoping to play my part in reviving it (I want to share more old stories too, in addition to my own originals).
Adults deserve to learn from stories too, not just nonfiction books!
Animal Farm is the best.
Wonder, Shades of Gray, and A Thousand Splendid Suns are a few other of my philosophical favorites - even if they don't deal with ideology directly. Thanks for Candide - I hadn't heard of it before.
> Adults deserve to learn from stories too, not just nonfiction books!
I'm actually still a teenager, and have been reading since I could hold a book in my hand.
Where are you from? I'm from Chennai, India.
Wow, wonderful that you've built a reading habit so early in life. I read novels when I was younger (The Odyssey, Fifth Business were my favorites) but I wouldn't say I was an avid reader until later in life. (I'm in my late 30s now.) My parents are from Hyderabad, India, and I've kind of lived all over the place. Was born in the Middle East, went to high school and university in Canada, and now live in California (also spent a couple years in NYC, and a few summers in Cape Town, South Africa.) So, I've been around 😅
Haha, that must have be fun!
I must check out these novels.
What inspired this story? Did it start with the idea “knowledge is not enough?” Or did it start with the character.
I love it. I’d love to have a series of these, a collection of podcast that I can share with my kids.
thanks Gary! You’re spot on that it started with an idea around contrasting wisdom and knowledge. I wrote about it once in a newsletter (https://letter.salman.io/p/knowledge-instructs-wisdom-encourages?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web), and I’ve always felt like the real key to the idea is that wisdom is on the other side of action. It’s fun to look at how to express these ideas through essays as well as stories.
As for reading with your kids, that would be so cool! Having adults enjoy the stories as well as with their kids is my dream ambition for Modern Fables :) I actually recorded a narration of this story which you can listen to here or in Substack app, and also had it auto-publish to a Modern Fables podcast, which you can find on Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0bZ44hPDIPF6WhsTTT7RH6?si=JQXc2fTiS9Kay2hZK4pqUQ) and Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/modern-fables/id1719675256)
I plan to keep publishing more fables like this in future, and they’ll just show up in the podcast as new episodes. You can also view the prior fables in the archive: https://letter.salman.io/s/modern-fables. The Substack app lets you play audio narrations of them even if I didn’t record one.
I’d love if you could test the podcast experience and play this story with your kids and let me know how it goes! (You can always email me at contact@salman.io). I always love hearing feedback from kids, their brutal honesty cannot be matched 😅
Thank you so much for reading, and for your feedback!
Love this line: “In the summer, I had knowledge. But the winter made me wise.”
thanks, Chris! I really like it too. I feel like I vaguely remember a line maybe from a movie where it was a sentence with two parts and the second part “made them wise.” It’s funny how inspiration, even when blurry and fuzzy, can influence what we create.
I love this illustration!!
Yay! Thank you. it’s great to hear the positive feedback on the illustration, because I’ve been choosing to stick with a more scratchy style that I like. In other words, not going the next level of polishing and clean lines. Now that I know that this style has appeal with the audience to, not just me, it’s pretty liberating, so I can publish more additions with an illustration.
Yes! Trust your scratchiness instinct. It’s great.
I am going to save that as a mantra! “Trust your scratchiness instinct.” Love it :)
😍
Perfect! The illustration is adorable 🥰
thank you so much!