Short Story: A Jewish tale. A scholar meets a non-scholar, and is bested

Thanks, Scott. Usually, in a fight, the street smart fighter will always defeat the book-learned/classroom trained fighter too.

@DocAndersen I myself was bashed by such a mauler once in my shop. He was a football player, built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his heyday, but even taller. I am a karate trained person myself, having studied it for twenty years, but this guy simply picked up my heavy shop counter bodily, and used it as a battering ram, slammed me into the wall. Once, I was trapped there, he lay into me without stopping with his fists, and boots. All I had left was the power of kiai. I yelled out in a loud authoritative voice, "Stop. You have done enough." He stopped in his tracks, as if he was shaking in his boots; I saw him visibly trembling. He looked at me queerly, turned around, and left my shop. I lived to tell the story after all. I had thought that I was going to be killed on that day. Really though, some other worldly power had come through me, and saved my life. I felt that surge of power coming through me, and I have tried to experience it again since, but so far I never have done so.

@innertalks i would agree to a point. A technically perfect karate expert, would beat a mauler, as long as the mauler didn't land a punch.

This old Sufi tale comes to mind here too: The Boatman. A Sufi Story from the Middle East A scholar asked a boatman to row him across the river. The journey was long and slow. The scholar was bored. "Boatman," he called out, "Let's have a conversation." Suggesting a topic of special interest to himself, he asked, "Have you ever studied phonetics or grammar?" "No," said the boatman, "I've no use for those tools." "Too bad," said the scholar, "You've wasted half of your life. It's useful to know the rules." Later, as the rickety old boat crashed into a rock in the middle of the river, the boatman turned to the scholar, and said, "Pardon my humble mind that to you must seem dim, but, wise man, tell me, have you ever learned to swim?" "No," said the scholar, "I've never learned. I've immersed myself in thinking." "In that case," said the boatman, "you've wasted all of your life. Alas, the boat is sinking."

@Shiva49 I also had an engineer too, who had fallen on hard times, and he became a car mechanic. He told me that he understands cars better than any mechanic ever did so. The thing was though, I found out that he was just all talk, and theory. My car never worked well after he had finished servicing it. He said he tuned it up, but I think that he really tuned it down. It's like me when I sharpen a knife. It ends up blunter than it was before.

@innertalks Without basic survival skills, our learning proves hollow. I have seen engineers who are very good at theory but poor in terms of practical application. One friend told me - I am an engineer but my wife, a homemaker, knows how to change a bulb better than me.

@@innertalks One must be very careful about becoming lifted in pride.

Yes, studying God's word seldom does us any harm, unless we become like the Pharisees, and use our knowledge of the word to separate ourselves from the common people, and so become full of pride, with a snootish, upwardly pointing nose, as we walk disdainfully past others, not so erudite in the scriptural knowledge.

@popciclecold Yes, the inflating of our ego, can give us a false sense of height.

@innertalks exactly what I do too

@RasmaSandra That's good, we think alike.

@innertalks