Experience Creates Wisdom

Many people feel that to have wisdom or to posses some sense of knowledge about the world around you, intelligence is involved. As shown in the poem, My Grandmother and the Stars, that is not true. Wisdom, as defined in the webster dictionary is accumulated philosophic or scientific learning. Wisdom is knowledge gathered through experiences. As described in the poem, Naomi's grandmother was a wise nurturing person with a lot of wisdom/ knowledge of the world around her. Even though she was illiterate, she was still able to be wise. It wasn't through the books she picked up and read or the stories she sat down and wrote but through the life experiences she gained. This relates directly to people today and society today. As children grow up and become men and women life's experiences change. As we grow older most of us learn how to cope or deal with certain situations. This is the knowledge that creates wisdom, but some don't get a chance to experience this. Your lifestyle, what you go through, see or hear are all parts of wisdom. Many can pick up a book, read the information and regurgitate it but at the end of the day when faced with a real life problem, they are not able to handle it. When a person is stuck only knowing their own environment and never experiencing anything out of there norm it is hard for them to gain real life knowledge about what is around them. This happens to college students everyday. When some sheltered students are taken out of there norm and placed into a college setting where everything has changed and so different from what they know it is hard to cope. They begin to get  involved with the wrong things are wrong ideas. When another student who has been introduced to these differences and has met adversity plenty of times throughout their lifetime enters a college setting where everything is now new it is a lot easier for them to deal with the adversity.