Slow Havamal: 54

[kylec]

In the 54th verse, We’re advised to be only moderately wise. Those who live happy lives know just the right amount, not too much or too little.

I admit I’m split between trying to search for the genuine benefit in a modest wisdom, and squinting my eye in suspicion that this verse is facetious. Maybe the real wise man would understand that being average and happy is no prize, and seek great wisdom anyway. Let’s see what happen if I explore both routes.

A quick eyeball measurement confirms the statement that having a moderate level of wisdom results in greater happiness. To be a fool, of course, means walking face-first into the same wall over and over. What that fool could never realize is that knowing too much can, at times, cause a different kind of pain. None of us are all-wise, but most have had the experience of finding out more about a topic and being let down—the ingredients of hot dogs, the history of a lover.

The Duning-Kruger effect describes a process of gaining knowledge over time. In the early going, as knowledge increases a little, confidence in our knowledge increases exponentially. The “expert” is one who’s just started to learn, and would love to tell you about it. I’ve known of this cognitive bias for years, and I can confirm that knowing about it does little to prevent it. At best, I can spot the defect sooner, blush, and shut up. But as time wears on and knowledge increases, confidence plummets. This phase is called the Valley of Despair, because on a graph where the line marches left to right on the x-axis with knowledge, and rises or falls on the y-axis with confidence, it looks as though we’ve just plummeted from a mountaintop into a swamp. The rest of the graph show a slow but steady trek upwards, never approaching the previous height even as one achieves true expertise.

In a sense, the D-K effect confirms both statements. It hurts to be wise, and if your only goal is to be happy, it’s best to quit while you’re ahead. A lot of the joy-shattering details we learn actually do little to change the situation, as in the examples of hot dogs and lovers. They only put it in context. Let’s be honest: I’m still going to eat the hot dog. The revelations amount to things not meeting a perfect and very hazy preconception, and the awareness that our own power is more limited than we thought, and our choices fewer. Ignorance is bliss, and as long as it doesn’t get you killed, isn’t bliss better?

It is if your goal is to be happy in the present. To an extent, Odin warns us that too many details only shatter our peace and don’t substantially improve our situation. But to imagine that deeper wisdom exists, and to question whether it’s worth seeking, already admits of humility. The plunge into the Valley is a step away.

The suffering of wisdom lies both in its acquisition, and in the painful reorientation to a new world. It usually requires work to achieve, and given that I’ve defined wisdom elsewhere as something like, “a contextual framework that aids in choosing actions, i.e. change,” those changes probably come when the things we’re already doing fail. Pain, not pleasure, brings about change. Delusions leave thousands of shards underfoot. Confidence plunges. But if we weren’t any worse-off ignoring the hot dog ingredients before we eat it, is it really so bad to know them, find them unpleasant, and feed anyway? The difference in the two is an estimation of where we stand.

The plunge into the Valley of Despair is followed by the long trek up a gradual slope. It could be that the pain of wisdom is sharpest at the onset. The position of experts, when faced with limitations, usually amounts to a shrug and, “it is what it is.” We once accepted the world we live in, after years of tearful diaper changes, and found something to be happy about. Might we do so again once we accept a new round of wisdom and reorient properly?

Odin advises against being too wise. This is the same god who plucked out his eye and gifted it to Mimir in exchange for wisdom. The same god to hung himself from Yggdrasil for nine days and nine nights in order to gain, once again, wisdom. Are we really to believe that he wants us to be half-ignorant? His warning is fair. Great wisdom seems to require great suffering. We shouldn’t go into it with illusions. But the happiness we sacrifice amounts to an elementary misunderstanding. Once we accept the new world, there’s nothing to suffer. Our actions have changed from those that caused the failure and pain. And it isn’t a new world, at all, but the one we’ve inhabited all along. This verse serves as a watcher on the threshold, offering sage advice for those who aren’t ready to take the plunge, and serving as a wry invitation for those who would trade a kind of madness for a richer world, and a humbler part.