The Game of Telephone: When Information Becomes Wisdom
The internet is one giant game of telephone.
Information moves faster than ever before. A story begins somewhere, gets shared, reshared, interpreted, expanded, shortened, and reshaped. With every person who passes it along, something may be added. Something may be removed. Something may become clearer. Something may become distorted.
Sometimes the information is accurate.
Sometimes it is not.
Sometimes it is simply one person's perspective being passed along as if it were universal truth.
The internet has given us an incredible ability to connect. We can witness people coming together in moments of crisis. We see strangers offering prayers, compassion, encouragement, and support. We see humanity reaching across distance to say, "You are not alone."
And yet, it also reveals something about us.
It shows us how quickly we accept, repeat, and pass along information without always pausing to ask:
Is this true?
How do I know this?
Have I actually experienced this, or have I only heard someone else speak about it?
The question becomes even more interesting when we turn the lens inward.
How many times have I repeated wisdom because it sounded beautiful?
How many times have I shared something because it felt meaningful, even though I had only touched the surface of its depth?
How often have I mistaken knowing the words for knowing the experience?
I think about the spiritual path.
How easy it is to learn something and suddenly feel we understand it.
We take a class. We read a book. We experience a beautiful moment. We receive a teaching from someone who has walked before us.
And for a moment, it feels complete.
I remember learning Reiki and feeling like I understood energy.
And I did understand something.
I understood a piece.
A doorway had opened.
But that doorway was not the entire house.
Energy is vast. Consciousness is vast. Healing is vast. Life itself is vast.
Every teaching we encounter is an invitation into deeper relationship, not a final destination.
Maybe this is true for all wisdom.
We touch one part of the mystery and sometimes mistake that touch for knowing the whole.
We learn the language of awakening and believe we are awake.
We learn about compassion and believe we have embodied compassion.
We learn about surrender and believe we have surrendered.
The words become familiar.
Living them becomes the journey.
Perhaps discernment is not only asking, "Is this information true?"
Perhaps the deeper question is:
"Has this become true in me?"
Has this teaching moved beyond my mind and into my way of being?
Has it changed how I walk through the world?
Has it changed how I listen, how I love, how I respond?
There is a difference between carrying someone else's words and speaking from the place those words were born.
One can be repeated.
The other can only be lived.
Maybe this is the invitation of our time.
Not to collect more information.
We have more information available than any generation before us.
Maybe the invitation is to slow down enough to allow what we encounter to move from information into wisdom.
To let the teachings we receive meet our own life.
To walk with them.
To question them.
To experience them.
To allow them to transform us.
Because wisdom is not something we simply pass along.
Wisdom is something we become.
And perhaps the greatest discernment is recognizing the difference.
With love and blessings,
Susan