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Book Smarts Versus Street Smarts
Book smarts and street smarts both have a place in our lives.
I think I was in high school when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Given my deep love of sci-fi and fantasy, D&D fueled that. I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t want to roleplay a mighty warrior wielding a sword, a sneaky thief, or a scary-powerful sorcerer? Even if it involves books, paper, and dice — imagination can take you to some really cool places.
Not only has D&D been an inspiration to my writing — I have found a few real-life applications. One in particular concerns book smarts versus street smarts.
For the most part, these are defined as such:
- Book smarts — All the things you can learn in school, via study, and any other intentional gathering of data
- Street smarts — All the things you learn by experience, interacting with people, working with tangibles and intangibles, etc.
Book smarts often get fancy degrees with letters attached to them. MD, Ph.D., JD, and the like. Street smarts are often equated with notions of running with gangs, understanding how the dark, dirty, mean streets of a given city work, and the like.
But I see this more like the stats you roll up in D&D. For any character you create…
