To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is…
To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.
Knowing a great many facts is not the same as understanding what is going on. Bonhoeffer separates information from insight: a person can follow every development and still miss what matters, even because of the sheer quantity they take in. Yet he does not scorn facts. A small, seemingly trivial detail can sometimes open up a whole situation. The wise person gathers knowledge carefully but does not let it become a master, and wisdom lies in seeing the meaningful within the merely factual.
This fits Bonhoeffer's life as a Lutheran theologian who opposed the Nazi regime and was executed in 1945. He watched educated, well-informed people fail to grasp what was happening around them, and he believed that moral clarity requires judgment, not just data. His emphasis on responsibility and on seeing things as they really are runs through his later writings.
Today this might mean noticing how much time you spend scrolling headlines and feeling informed. Instead, you could follow the news more sparingly, then pause over one detail, such as a single sentence in a long report or a colleague's offhand remark in a meeting, and ask what it reveals about the bigger picture.