The Power Behind Knowledge

Knowledge, what are we without it? We go to school for thirteen years to earn it. As the Human Race, we would have absolutely nothing if we didn’t have knowledge. Imagine your life without medicine, smartphones, cars, electricity, indoor plumbing and without the knowledge of knowing how to write. All of these come from our pursuit of knowledge.

The average person spends 2,275 days in school, that’s 15,925 hours or 955,500 minutes or 57,330,000 seconds. All this time adds up to about 8% of the average American Lifespan. Some people even add onto this time by doing further postsecondary schooling. We take all this time out of our lives because the intelligence we gain in school is essential throughout our lives. Some of the most famous scholars of history devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of knowledge.

I myself see knowledge as more than just book smarts or your grades in school. To me it is all around us. Knowledge comes in many different shapes and sizes. Some forms of intelligence come from us just being told how to do something and being able to know it instantly. When I’m told that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, I just know, it doesn’t take time or practice to learn this fact. Others types of knowledge you gain come from practice and hard work, such as learning how to play an instrument or throw a bowling ball to get strikes.

Knowledge is a huge asset throughout life and can be used in many different fields. Though I don’t think you can accurately compare people’s’ intelligence to others. Can the world’s greatest artist compare his extensive knowledge of painting to the world’s greatest pitcher with his great knowledge of throwing curves and fast pitches? When I think of this, I think of my brother and sister. My brother is and always was very book smart. He rarely studied for tests or tried his hardest in school, but got steady A’s. My sister on the other hand got steady A’s but worked for them. She studied and did her best work on every school project. Though, my sister was very good in band, she played the Bassoon and Alto Saxophone. On the flip side my brother could not play an instrument to save his life. He tried trumpet, trombone and clarinet, he just didn’t have the gift. So who has more knowledge, who is more intelligent?