Street Smarts

IF God asked me "if you wanted to have one thing, what that would be". I would say I wanted to be a street smart. Nothing less, nothing more. I need no money. I need no fame (good fame I mean), I need no, well that's pretty much it. With that and with others I already possess, I could easily survive. And get whatever I want. Because then it would have given me the ability to trust the right person. And most importantly the courage to stand up for the music instead of running away :)

I have observed street smartness in action in one of my friend. We landed in CBE from US with so many luggages and stuff. At the airport, we were approached by several auto and taxi wallahs. My friend avoided two of them who tried to lend their hands with our luggages. Those guys wanted the business badly or it maybe their way of snatching away. Many people would have just accepted their invitation and gave them what they wanted. But the problem with this, you lose the leverage. So my friend picked the one who is idle, now he had the leverage. He was able to negotiate a reasonable price. My dad uses the same technique. They are all street smarts.

I lack this completely. Psychologists say that there is a phase in child's growth where the child would assume it is the center of the world. ie all events external to it are revolving around it. Slowly, it realizes that this is not true and starts adapting itself with the world, realizing that it is part of the world. This phase develops when the child spends lot of time with other kids or meet newer people. Sometime for someone like me, transition from center of the world phase to this phase do not happen timely or completely. The main effect of this when the kid grows into an adult is that he or she feel isolated from the group most of the times. And during trying times, the person faces the problems all alone. The strength to survive comes from within than without.