When Being Wise Might Mean Being Less Informed

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I was sixteen when my high school expelled me for publishing an underground newspaper opposing the Vietnam War. I’d grown up in a conservative household, campaigned with my dad for Barry Goldwater at thirteen, and could debate politics with the confidence of someone who thought having the facts meant having the truth. I was informed.

But when the principal called me into his office and handed me my expulsion, something shifted. I realized that information alone doesn’t steady you when the ground gives way. It doesn’t tell you what to stand for when there’s a cost. It doesn’t help you sort signal from noise or conviction from reaction. That lesson — learned the hard way — is why I believe so deeply that in an age drowning in information, what we are actually starving for is wisdom.

It’s Never Been Easier To Be Informed, Yet Harder To Be Wise

We live inside a constant stream of updates. Headlines refresh by the minute, notifications stack up, feeds and email refill endlessly. Knowing what just happened has become almost effortless. Understanding what it means, though, has become much rarer.

Being informed is about exposure. Being wise is about integration.

Information arrives fast, loud, and fragmented. It’s designed to grab attention, provoke reaction, and then make room for the next thing. Wisdom, on the other hand, moves slowly. It requires context, memory, and a willingness to hold competing truths in the mind without forcing them into premature conclusions.

Modern culture confuses these two states constantly. We assume that consuming more information will eventually produce understanding, as if wisdom were a simple accumulation problem. But more inputs don’t necessarily lead to deeper insight. Often, they produce the opposite: overwhelm, anxiety, and a false sense of mastery.

Knowing many facts isn’t the same thing as knowing how those facts relate to one another. Knowing what happened today isn’t the same as knowing why similar things have happened before. Knowing who to blame isn’t the same as knowing what to change.

Wisdom Asks Different Questions Than Information Does

Information asks, “What’s new?” Wisdom asks, “What does it mean?” Information asks, “Who said this?” Wisdom asks, “Who benefits if I believe it?” Information asks for immediacy while wisdom asks for proportion.

This difference shows up most clearly in how we respond to things emotionally. Information tends to stimulate. It triggers urgency, outrage, fear, excitement. Wisdom, on the other hand, tends to steady. It doesn’t eliminate feeling, but it tempers it with perspective.

That’s why constant information consumption can feel exhausting without ever feeling satisfying. The nervous system stays activated, but nothing resolves.

That’s why constant information consumption can feel exhausting without ever feeling satisfying. The nervous system stays activated, but nothing resolves. Each new item demands a response, but no response is ever enough.

Wisdom, by contrast, doesn’t require constant engagement. It allows for pauses. It makes room for silence. It recognizes that some truths only emerge when we stop reacting long enough to let them settle.

Wisdom Involves Restraint

Wisdom knows when not to speak, not to share, not to react. It recognizes that not every piece of information deserves amplification, and not every truth needs to be delivered at maximum volume.

In an attention economy, this restraint can look like disengagement, but it’s often the opposite. It’s a deeper form of engagement, one that refuses to be yanked around by every new stimulus.

Many people sense this intuitively. They feel a growing gap between how informed they are and how grounded they feel. They know more and understand less. They react faster and think more shallowly. Something essential has gotten lost in the churn.

Reclaiming wisdom doesn’t require rejecting information altogether. Instead, it requires changing our relationship to it.

This might mean fewer sources, slower reading, more revisiting and less refreshing. It might mean choosing depth over breadth, history over novelty, synthesis over accumulation. It might mean letting some things pass without comment.

Wisdom Lives In Bodies And Relationships, Not Just Data

Wisdom also requires remembering that knowledge lives in bodies and relationships, not just in data. It’s shaped by experience, reflection, and conversation. It grows when ideas are tested against lived reality, not just against other ideas.

The goal isn’t to be uninformed; it’s to become oriented. To know what deserves attention and what doesn’t. To recognize patterns instead of chasing noise. In a world that constantly asks us to keep up, wisdom offers a different invitation: Slow down. Step back. Connect the dots.

Being informed tells you what just happened. Being wise helps you decide what to do about it. Looking back now, I can see that getting expelled wasn’t just a teenage act of rebellion; it was my first lesson in the difference between noise and understanding.

Information can tell you what’s happening in the moment. Wisdom asks what kind of country — what kind of human being — you want to help shape over a lifetime. In a world that moves at the speed of outrage, the real courage isn’t in reacting faster. It’s found in stepping back, thinking deeper, and choosing your response with conscience and compassion.

That’s the work. And it matters more now than ever.

Reprinted with permission from Thom Hartmann’s substack The Wisdom School: What It Means To Be Human.

Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author 34 books in 17 languages and the nation’s #1 progressive radio host, as well as a psychotherapist and international relief worker. Sign up to receive The Hartmann Report, a daily newsletter of Renaissance thinking about progressive politics, economics, science, and the issues of our day.

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