Book vs. Street #socs

Stream of Consciousness Saturday 1 Minute

There are two kinds of "smarts" that you can have: book smarts and street smarts. Some people are getting information out of books. Given a situation, they’ll go to the library and get a book out about it. In contrast, street smart people will get on the phone and call their friends and ask them if they know how to handle the situation, or if they know someone who knows how to handle it. Absent all that, they might try to cope with the situation themselves, and while they might screw up a few times, eventually they’ll get it right.

Which is better? Both of them have their good and bad points. Getting the information from books is great because, should the need arise again, you’ll know where you can find the information. However, it’ll take time to peruse the materials and decide on an approach, by which time someone with street smarts might have found someone who knows how to deal with it. A person with street smarts will know who they can call that might have the solution, but might have to call a lot of folks if they get the wrong answers.

The best aproach, obviously, is to be able to do both.

Linda runs Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Now a word about Sprite. Now, more than ever, it’s Sprite!

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

15 thoughts on “Book vs. Street #socs”

    1. We all use a combination of skills to get the job done, and sometimes one skill is more appropriate than the other. The trick (which I can honestly say I never learned) is knowing when one is more appropriate than the other.

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