Top Highlights

• Our world has more and more information, but less and less wisdom. More data; less clarity. More stimulation; less synthesis. More distraction; less stillness. More pontificating; less pondering. More opinion; less research. More speaking; less listening. More to look at; less to see. More amusements; less joy.
• This book proposes that we need a better diet of knowledge and better habits of information intake.
• We need a diet comprised of lasting, reliable sources of wisdom rather than the fleeting, untrustworthy information that bombards us today; a diet heavy on what fosters wisdom and low on what fosters folly.
• You might remember the old “Food Pyramid” from your childhood. First published in the US by the Department of Agriculture in 1992, the Food Pyramid was designed to help people understand the folly of eating only french fries, soda, and candy—and the wisdom of eating grains, fruits, and vegetables.
• We need something similar for our habits of information intake. We need guidance for how to daily navigate the glut of information available to us, an ordering framework for navigating the noise and the mess of our cultural moment. We need a “Wisdom Pyramid.”