I was recently reading Nicolas Michaelsen’s Substack article entitled, “Towards a Systemic Investing Approach for Wisdom Infrastructure,” and I was intrigued by its premise: What if we invested in wisdom cultivation like we do in cities and infrastructure? Some of today’s post includes Nicolas’ writing and some of it is from my noggin’.
He writes, “Our world is transforming rapidly, yet the infrastructures needed to cultivate wisdom—ethical discernment, embodied insight, and relational depth—are missing. Despite unprecedented access to information, society is increasingly fragmented and disconnected from meaning.” Might human wisdom be the alchemical balance to artificial intelligence?
For thousands of years, Wisdom Schools have emerged in times of global crisis or on the cusp of great leaps in human consciousness in order to help shepherd our planet through a difficult transition. No doubt, we are going through one of those times right now. While there is academic teaching that goes on in a Wisdom School, that is not the primary business of these places like MEA; the primary business is to help anchor human wholeness and to work with the core practices that sustain the transformation of consciousness. This is partly because so many traditional educational institutions have become more bureaucracies than catalysts. But, as I’ve often felt like MEA is doing this alone, maybe we’re supposed to be part of a connected structure?
Nicolas writes, “Instead of merely funding individual projects or ventures, we could create an approach to building decentralized yet interwoven Wisdom Infrastructure—a set of developmental spaces, cultural narratives, communities, ecologies of praxis, and economic engines designed to foster discernment, depth, and relational intelligence at scale.”
He continues, “Imagine the journey from an individual’s perspective:
- You engage with a piece of media that sparks curiosity, leading you to explore an online course.
- The course deepens your interest, prompting you to join a physical retreat or immersive program.
- Through these experiences, you begin re-evaluating your work or purpose, leading to a vocational shift that aligns more with your values.
- As you integrate these changes, you contribute back—through inspiring others, mentorship, or acts of service—helping expand the collective understanding of human development and inspiring others to embark on their own journeys.”
As Nicolas suggests, “This is not the first time in history that we face the challenge of cultivating wisdom at scale. Many societies—across vastly different cultural contexts—have systematically invested in wisdom infrastructure during periods of profound change. These investments were not incidental; they were deliberate responses to societal transformation, creating institutions that shaped human development for generations. The crises we face are not just technological, economic, or environmental—they are failures of sensemaking, relationship, and cultural transmission. We need more than education; we need a reconstitution of the conditions for learning itself. This means integrating an ecological worldview, leveraging technology without being enslaved by it, and reintegrating the wisdom traditions that have guided human development for millennia.”
I know this is heady stuff, but what do you think? How might we create a connected web of Wisdom Schools dedicated more to distilling discernment than accumulating knowledge?
-Chip