essay about being smart

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A neuroscientist on wisdom vs. intelligence & why they both matter.

Wisdom and intelligence are both great qualities to have—but they certainly aren't mutually exclusive. Intelligence doesn't guarantee wisdom , and vice versa. In fact, while they may seem like similar traits, they're actually quite different, though it is possible to have both.

How is wisdom different from intelligence?

First things first: What do the two actually mean? By definition, wisdom (the quality of being wise) is described as "the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment." To be wise is to have deep insight and understanding, and wise people may be thought of as old souls .

As neuroscientist and author of  The Source   Tara Swart, M.D., Ph.D., explains to mbg, "Wisdom is the life lessons you pick up through experience and store in your neurons but don't consciously recall."

Intelligence, on the other hand, is defined as "the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills." It's about intellect and the application of that intellect. Swart notes intelligence can be defined in several ways, including emotional intelligence , "But the traditional definition is about using your logic to solve problems and make decisions."

So the difference then is where these qualities come from and how we use them. Wisdom comes through experience, perhaps without us even realizing it, and intelligence, in all its many forms, is often something inherent (or something we consciously work on improving).

Wisdom "allows you to recognize patterns and make decisions based on intuition ," Swart says, adding that it's more of a "felt" sense that something is right or wrong. Intelligence, she explains, "is more about data and 'knowing.'"

Is one more important?

Some people may favor intelligence over wisdom, or wisdom over intelligence, depending on their values, goals, and so on. But according to Swart, both are equally important.

However, she says, "As you grow in wisdom and experience, intuition can become far more powerful than logic alone."

Ideally, you can exercise both, so you can not only approach a situation logically (intelligence) but tap into your deeper sense of wisdom or intuition to read between the lines or see the big picture.

As Swart puts it, it's great when your wisdom and intelligence are aligned, "but when logic tells you one thing and intuition tells you another, you have to learn which leads to better outcomes for you."

How to discern wisdom from intelligence.

So, when the moment strikes, how can you know whether certain thoughts are coming from a place of wisdom or a place of intelligence (both in yourself and in another)? Here are a few strategies:

Notice where it's coming from.

Swart explains that logic tends to "come from your head and is based on gathering facts and making a decision that you know the reasons behind."

Wisdom, on the other hand, "is felt usually in the gut or heart and comes with a deep sense of feeling that this is right for you, not just right in general," she says. It can often be accompanied by visceral sensations like goose bumps or even tears, she adds.

Notice how you reached the conclusion you came to; was your thought process more linear and logical? That's intelligence. Or was it more big picture, and allowed you to draw on past experiences and patterns? That's wisdom.

Write on it.

Further, if you want to get better at distinguishing between the two, Swart says journaling can help . Try reflecting on the times your intelligence may have served you better than your wisdom, and vice versa. You may find one is stronger than the other or leads to better outcomes when you follow it.

Ask others how they make decisions.

And the next time you're speaking with someone and want to know whether they're showing wisdom or intelligence, Swart says you can simply ask them directly where their reasoning is coming from and what it's based on.

You can usually get a sense from their answer, as they may say something that's clearly more logical (intelligence) versus something more big picture that's related to their own experience (wisdom).

The bottom line.

While one is no better than the other, both wisdom and intelligence are helpful qualities to have. Throughout our lives, wisdom is gained over the years, and on top of that, we're always presented with opportunities to exercise our intelligence by learning new information. The key is learning to hone both so they can work in tandem, and you can approach any situation with both logic and a deeper understanding .

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Street smart vs. book smart: 12 Differences

Smartness or intelligence can be defined in several ways. I won’t bore you with all the definitions. No matter how you slice and dice it, smartness boils down to problem-solving. You’re smart in my book if you’re good at solving problems, especially complex ones.

What determines how well we’re able to solve a problem?

One word: Knowledge.

In a previous article on overcoming challenges , I said that we could best think about problem-solving using the analogy of puzzles. Like a puzzle, a problem has pieces you absolutely need to know about.

When you know about these pieces, you can then ‘play around’ around with those pieces to solve the problem.

Knowing the pieces is all about learning everything you can about the nature of the problem. Or, at least, learning enough to be able to solve the problem.

Hence, knowledge or understanding is essential for problem-solving.

It follows that the more knowledge you have, the smarter you will be.

Street smart vs. book smart

This is where street smart vs. book smart comes in. Both street smart and book smart people are trying to achieve the same thing- an increase in knowledge to become better problem-solvers. Where they differ is how they predominantly gain knowledge.

Street smart people gain knowledge from their own experiences . Book smart people gain knowledge from others’ experiences , documented in books, lectures, courses, and so forth.

Street smartness is gaining first-hand knowledge by being in the trenches and getting your hands dirty. Book smartness is second-hand knowledge gained while you sit comfortably on a chair or sofa.

Key points of difference

Let’s list out the main differences between street and book smart people:

1. Knowledge source

As mentioned above, the knowledge source for street smart people is the pool of their own experiences. Book smart people learn from the experience of others. Both are trying to become better problem-solvers by increasing their knowledge.

2. Knowledge type

Street smart people are focused on learning how to do things. They have practical knowledge. They’re good at getting things done. Execution is of utmost importance because that’s how they learn.

Book smart people care about the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ in addition to the ‘how’. Learning deeply about the problem at hand is of utmost importance. Execution tends to fall by the wayside.

Street smart people tend to be generalists. They tend to know a little bit about everything. They know enough to get the job done. They tend to have good survival, emotional and social skills.

Book smart people tend to be specialists. They know a lot about one area and little about other areas. They’re focused on developing their cognitive skills. Emotional and social skills tend to get ignored.

4. Decision-making

Street smart people can make quick decisions because they know they don’t have to know everything to get started. They have a bias for action.

Book smart people take a long time to decide because they keep digging and looking for the pros and cons of a decision. They tend to suffer from analysis paralysis.

5. Risk-taking

Risk-taking is at the heart of ‘learning by experience’. Street smart people know that not taking risks is the biggest risk.

One of the reasons book-smart people are so highly invested in understanding the nature of a problem is so they can minimize risks.

6. Rigidity type

Both street and book-smart people can be rigid in their ways. However, they differ in the way they’re inflexible.

Street smart people have experience rigidity . Their knowledge is confined to their experiences. If they haven’t experienced something, they do not know about it.

Book smart people have knowledge rigidity . Their knowledge is mostly confined to theoretical knowledge. If they haven’t read about it, they don’t know about it.

7. Structures and rules

Street smart people loathe structures and rules. They feel trapped in a structured environment. They’re rebels who want to do things their way.

Book smart people feel safe in a structured environment. They need rules to thrive.

8. Speed of learning

Experience may be the best teacher, but it’s also the slowest. Street smart people are slow learners because they rely entirely on their experience.

Book smart people are fast learners. They know they can’t have all the experience to learn all that they need to learn. They shorten their learning curves by learning from the experiences of others.

9. Abstract thinking

Street smart people tend to be limited in their thinking. While they can think enough to solve everyday problems, they struggle with abstract or conceptual thinking.

Abstract thinking is a forte of book-smart people. They’re deep thinkers and like playing around with concepts and ideas. They can articulate the inarticulable.

10. Scientific temper

Street smart people tend to have less regard for science and expertise. They tend to over-rely on their own experience.

Book smart people tend to respect science. Since they have expertise themselves, they can appreciate other people’s expertise.

11. Improvisation

Street smart people know how to think on their feet and improvise. They have high situational awareness and can devise creative solutions to problems.

Book smart people tend to lack improvisation skills. If something goes against what they’ve learned from others, they find it hard to deal with.

12. Bigger picture

Street smart people are tactical and focused on the details. They tend to miss the bigger picture. Book smart people are strategic, reflective and always have the bigger picture in mind.

You need both

Having gone through the above list, you may have realized that both learning styles have their pros and cons. You need both street and book smartness to be an effective problem-solver.

It’s rare to find people with a good balance of book and street smartness. You often see people at the extremes: Book smart people who keep gaining knowledge without implementation. And street-smart people who repeat the same actions without making progress.

You want to be both book and street-smart. Book smart so you can adopt a scientific mindset, focus on the bigger picture, be strategic and learn fast. Street smart so you can be a fierce executor.

If you forced me to choose one, I’d lean slightly more toward being book smart. And I have good reasons for that.

Why I think book smartness is slightly better

If you ask people which type of smartness is better, most of them will say street smartness. I think that stems from the fact that book smartness is easier to acquire than street smartness.

While it’s true, I’ve realized that people grossly underestimate the importance of knowledge. They underestimate how much they need to know and the depth of knowledge they need to solve complex problems.

Today, we live in a knowledge economy where knowledge is the most valuable resource.

Book smartness helps you learn fast. The faster you learn, the quicker you can solve problems- especially the complex problems of the modern world.

Not only do book-smart people learn faster, but they also learn more. A book is nothing but a person’s collection of their experiences and what they’ve learned from others’ experiences.

Street smart = Own experiences

Book smart = Others’ experiences [Their experiences + (What they’ve learned from others’ experiences/books)]

Book smart = Street smartness of others + Their book smartness

This is what makes learning via book smartness exponential. Humans have thrived because they found a way to crystallize knowledge in books/poetry and transfer it to the next generation.

Thanks to this knowledge transfer, the next generation didn’t have to make the same mistakes as the previous generation.

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” – Carl Sagan

It’s great to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s much better to learn from others’ mistakes. You don’t live long enough to make all the mistakes you need to make, and some mistakes can be too costly.

Do you want to be the guy who learns that a plant is poisonous by eating and dying? Or would you rather that someone else did it? You learn not to eat that plant by learning from the experience of a noble soul who sacrificed themselves for humanity.

When people accomplish great things in life, what do they do? Do they write books, or do they tell others:

“Hey, I’ve achieved great things, but I won’t document what I’ve learned. You go learn on your own. Good luck!”

Anything- literally anything, is teachable. Even street smartness. I just did a quick search on Amazon, and there’s a book there on street smartness for entrepreneurs.

While it may seem ironic at first glance, you can learn street smartness via book smartness, but you can’t learn book smartness via street smartness.

Many street-smart people don’t pick up a book because they think they know everything. If they did, they’d become invincible. 

Take the street vs book smart quiz to check your level of street vs book smartness.

Hi, I’m Hanan Parvez (MA Psychology). I’ve published over 500 articles and authored one book. My work has been featured in Forbes , Business Insider , Reader’s Digest , and Entrepreneur .

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Smartness: Benefits and Challenges

Knowledge seems to be a thing that we are struggling for throughout our life. We learn a lot at school, college, work and even at home or outside from unknown people. Therefore, we can consider that all the time we are striving to become smarter than we are now. There are some really clever people that we might adore but often they can appear to be not as happy as we would think about them. Before you run to the library for borrowing the next encyclopedia, check the advantages and disadvantages of being smart.

Pros of being smart:

People like cooperating with smart ones. What is more, employers like hiring clever people as they are able to improve the success of the company, are pleasant to work with, and appear to be more productive. If you care about your career consider life-long learning for yourself.

Although marks are not the most important indicators of a person’s success, it is definitely more pleasant to get A instead of D. Professors appreciate bright students and treat them with compliments, good marks and even diploma with honors, in the most special cases.

As you have more knowledge about the world around you are more aware of the dangers and their effects. Sometimes, the factors, which seem to ruin your life, appear to be not so scary at all. The reasons for a stress in most cases are fake and easy to overcome. If you understand what is going on around you will be more capable of coping with difficulties.

Without having enough knowledge in the certain area you might feel unsure if you need to solve an issue. On the contrary, being armed with much facts, arguments and examples, you can compare the issues, develop alternative situations and find the solution, which is the most suitable for your case.

Cons of being smart:

If you like laying on the sofa for hours and staying in bed till noon, smartness is likely to be someone else’s priority, but not yours. You will need to work hard if you want to know a lot. Knowledge does not come by its own but you have to pursue it daily.

If you spend much time reading, learning and practicing your skills, you won’t be able to hang out with friends for too long, go to matches daily, play games etc. It means that you will have to reduce the time for entertainments and substitute some common activities with those ones that are more developing for you.

By being aware and realizing more enormous concepts and processes, you can feel depressed. Not all the things around us happen as we wish them to be, and there are a number of global issues that cannot be solved.

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Difficulties in Being Smart Person Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Difficulties of being smart.

It is a common notion that there are many advantages of being “so smart” when compared to being “young and stupid.” People love being described as “so smart” rather than “young and stupid.” But many experiences do not become as enjoyable when you are stupid and young. Hence there are advantages of being young and stupid too.

When a person is young and stupid his level of ego is not as high as that of a person who is so smart. This high level of ego proves to be harmful to the person who is smart as there are not many friends of that person. There are very few people who feel comfortable while speaking to him. On the other hand, it is much easier to speak to a young and stupid person. People find it much easier to connect to him. This is the reason why he has more friends than so smart person. Having lots of friends and well-wishers is naturally a great advantage in life.

It is difficult for a smart person to be humble because he has achieved so much in life and is so ahead of others that he faces difficulty in finding people who can match up to his standards. Humility is one of the great virtues of life. This comes naturally to young and stupid people. Thus, the presence of this personality trait is certainly an advantage.

The people who are so smart have a better capacity for analysing a situation or foreseeing a problem. This makes them very cautious in life. They think a lot while doing things. This quality robs them of their naturalness. While the young and stupid people are not able to think so much. They lead a life as it comes. Since they are not able to foresee future problems or reactions to an action or behavior, they do whatever they feel like without any fear or feeling of obligation. Hence, they enjoy every moment in a carefree manner. Life looks rosier to them when compared to so smart people.

The so smart people like to be busy all the time. There is a hunger to achieve as much as possible. If things do not work according to their calculations, they get bored and even depressed. Since young and stupid people have lesser of such qualities, boredom strikes them at a much lesser rate. They do not have any high ambitions so there is a lesser chance of feeling depressed and frustrated. This is certainly an advantage over smart people.

There is constant pressure on the so smart people to prove themselves. Everyone feels that they should perform well and achieve great things in life. This attitude of others as well as their inner ambitions forces them to slog like a machine. While the young and stupid people do not have so much strain or burden to prove themselves. Others do not have any high expectations from them. This makes their life much trouble-free and enjoyable when compared to smart people. This is yet another advantage.

Time is very precious. Smart people often complain of time constraints. They have so much to do that they think that they have not got enough time. But the young and stupid people are richer in time. They have plenty of it to spare. This makes them more creative than smart people. Creativity needs time, which is an advantage that young and stupid people have over smart people.

How smart people do things is a source of learning for others. But there are many other sources of learning nowadays. How young and stupid people conduct themselves makes others laugh. There are very few sources of laughter these days. Since laughter is great medicine, this personality trait makes young and stupid people more sought after by others, which is an advantage over being so smart.

It has been rightly said that ignorance is bliss. This bliss enables young and stupid people to lead a happier life when compared to the so smart people.

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Would you rather be really rich or really smart?

When I’m staring at nematodes and copepods all day, I start daydreaming about stuff.

If someone–a magical genie or angel or something–said he’d grant you one of two things–unlimited wealth or unlimited brains–which one would you pick?

It really isn’t that an easy a question for me to answer.

Off the bat, I would want to be brilliant. I think it would cool to speak a hundred different languages and be able to play the piano like…like…the best pianist ever (see, I’m not even smart enough to think of a name). I would love to come up with ideas about how to solve the world’s problems and be charismatic enough to convince people that I knew what I was talking about. I would love to be able to look at any problem–like the AIDS crisis–and be able to come up with some practical solutions. I would love to wrap my head around astrophysics and converse intelligently with anthropologists and make political scientists quiver with my wisdom. It would be cool.

But then again, being rich wouldn’t be bad either. Even if I wasn’t able to think of the solutions to all the world’s problems, I could give money to those people who are able. I could afford to fix up all the poor inner-cities in the land and give start-up money to people with big plans. I would still be a dummy, but at least I could be a dummy who’s actions were louder than words. And I would be able to sleep in late and eat all that I wanted.

So I’m not sure which I would want. How about you?

I used to think that I would prefer to be brilliant. However, after being laid off for 9 months and not being able to find a job, I would definitely prefer being very rich.

Come on, that’s a no-brainer (ha-ha! I make funny, you laugh, no?).

I’d take smarts. With a supersized brain you’d be able to figure out a way to get rich anyway, so why take the wealth up front when you can eventually have both?

If you’re smart enough, you’d find a way to get rich.

Well, if you’re rich and you have some innate abilities, you could go to school and read a lot and become pretty smart.

Plus, you can drive a really nice car.

Im going back for a second undergraduate degree in the fall. I’ve picked out my courses and there is one that, frankly, I’m terrified of. I took the prerequisite 5 years ago and am a little unsure of myself. I’d take the smarts.

I’ll echo a sentiment I’ve seen here already. Brains, all the way. I know I could find a way to get plenty o’ money if I had unrestrained intelligence.

Brains, all the way.

A wise man is more likely to be content than a rich man.

But didn’t Lisa Simpson herself say, “As intelligence goes up, happiness usually goes down. I made a graph! I make lots of graphs…” ?

I’m one of those who believes that if you’re super smart, you can find ways to become super rich as well. But if you’re super rich, you can get away with doing stupid shit all the time that super smart people can’t, so I don’t know.

Maybe if you’re super smart, you can become super rich, then do super stupid things and just call yourself super excentric. Yeah…that’s what I’ll do…now where are those damn encyclopedias?

Don’t you think Lisa is happier than Monty Burns?

To further quote Matt Groening- Binky- “you only think you’re happy” Bongo- “you only think you’re smart”

Money, all the way. Smarts make you question everything, smarts make you sensitive to nuance and find hidden meaning in the most innoculous statements, and smarts make you aware that no matter how much you do, or how much you accomplish, there is always more that you haven’t yet mastered. Smarts make you aware of everything that you are not.

Give me blissful stupidity anytime. A friend of mine says it should hurt to be stupid, as it simply isn’t fair to go through life never having questioned yourself, your worth, your values…

Make me rich. I’ll buy myself a lobotomy, a huge beach house, and happily live out the rest of my life making shell-covered mirror frames and watching moronic daytime soap-operas/video-blooper reruns. To me, stupidity always sounded like the ultimate vacation. Throw in a hottub, a poolside tiki bar, and a few hot men I will have convinced myself want me for my huge personal charm (I’m stupid and rich, what do I care for the truth?), and it pretty much sounds like paradise.

I know several, very happy, not real bright rich people but I know even more, not real happy, pretty poor, smart folks.

Give me rich any day because with money comes power and I could study and get smart at my leisure if I had enough money. Look at history. Most of the great philosophers and wise men were independently wealthy and had time to goof off and think of great things.

I’m with Potter all the way on this one.

And I don’t think that smarts = find way to make money. Certain sorts of smarts (business/entrepreneurial one’s) will help you, but I know lots of VERY BRIGHT people who haven’t got two pennies to rub together.

Give me the money.

I have noticed that the more intelligent you are, the less respect you have (and less chance you’ll ever work in management). So, if you want people to listen to you and think you are smart, take the money, but if you want to be smart, be smart.

By the way, don’t we already know how to stop AIDS, but we’re just too horny and addicted to heroine to put it into practice?

Smarts, well at least more smarts. I wouldn’t want an unlimited supply of money. With too much money you start to make poor spending choices. Not that it really matters if you have infinite amounts… At least with brains you could earn money so you can see the value in what you buy. I would start by using my new found intelligence to write a collections of childrens stories. I would call them… The Adventures of Captain Sock! Who wants to invest? Wearia

Money. Just pick up the paper and see how many rich people are getting further ahead, while screwing over everyone else – including the smart folks.

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The Secret to Being Smart Is in the Za’atar

Books & Culture

Perla kantarjian considers the immutable function of foodstuffs as poetic vehicles for home, identity, and belonging.

When I was to leave Beirut to study in Norwich, I distinctly remember the depth of concern in my mother’s words: Վստա՞հ 3 տոպրակ զաաթարը բաւարար է ամբողջ մէկ տարուայ համար? You sure 3 packs of za’atar are enough for a whole year? I also distinctly remember not knowing how to respond to the various nuances within that multifaceted question. It’s England, mom, I eventually said. It’s ripe with Arabs. Այո, այո. There’s bound to be za’atar somewhere. 

Little did I know that on the second day of moving in, the mobilization of the za’atar forces was to already begin—the mothers of my Palestinian and Jordanian housemates, too, had made sure their za’atar fixes were on board. 

With various strains of the Levantine staple, we commenced what turned to be a social rite: olive oil drizzled into our different versions of the earthly blend of dried thyme, sesame, salt, cumin, and sumac, made into an ancestral paste which is then slathered onto wholemeal £3 toasts from Tesco. Our own version of a manakish za’atar tokenizing our unity in a foreign land. For a few seconds, we almost forgot we ever even left the Levant. The next day, I couldn’t help but render the whole thing into a poem. I titled it, plain and clear, “Levantine.”

The secret to being smart is in the za’atar, as all our mothers and teachers used to reiterate to our school-kid selves.

Such poetic inspiration however is not always around. In the heat of the semester, the cold and ghastly bodies of deadlines do especially tend to water down the gusto. When video calling mom, the cure to the agitation is constantly represcribed— you need to eat more za’atar . I need to eat more za’atar.

Of course, I need to eat more za’atar! How could I forget such a vital piece of intel? The secret to being smart is in the za’atar, as all our mothers and teachers used to reiterate to our school-kid selves. Za’atar for breakfast, za’atar in our lunch bags, the olive oil always finding a way to stain something of us during recess. Oral quiz today? Two sandwiches then. Big exam? Make that three. The brain buds have got to be activated in full. 

I remember this all as I am painstakingly and religiously munching on the concoction while trying to stimulate my head—there is a critical essay on poetics due soon. 

It takes one poem to put the whole picture into place (doesn’t it always?). This time, it is Arab-American poet Danielle Badra’s “ The Eight Station ,” in which she writes: “Grandmother mourned the loss of Lebanon and innocence the smell of thyme and sesame slow roasting in the oven.” I stop there. 

The technique to the refinement of the za’atar dough is intimate and surpasses the discourses around mere yeast and sugar.

Mourn. Loss. Thyme. The words splash against me like a cataract. In their distinct standings, there is an invisible connective thread. Is homesickness itself not an act of mourning? I begin digging other poems from the pens of the Levant diaspora.  I begin digging specifically for za’atar– the responsibility it is given, the role it plays. 

Levant. We say it with a schwa guided by its French origins— Lever, meaning “to rise,” refers to the point where the sun rises along the eastern Mediterranean shores that form the Levant. Contrary to its “elevating” connotation, the Levant, composed of the states of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, and adjacent areas, has long been drained by conflict and war. With most of its countries subject to threatening intrusions and unrelenting instability, displacement and exile have culminated in Levantine diasporas all over, its members clutching onto every native vessel that substantiates their sidelined nostalgias: the black seed (حَبّةُ البَرَكَة), the pomegranate molasses (دِبْس الرّمّان), the myrrh (المِرّ), the wild thyme (الزَّعْتَر البَرِّيّ), the, the, the. 

I begin to trace the physicality and presentation of said nostalgias in the writings of Anglophone Levantine diaspora poets, particularly in their infatuation with this herb, this thyme, this زَعْتَر, for the ubiquitous memory and presence of it culminates into a metonym for clinging to identity, as well as homesickness, and for quite a sensible reason. 

Among all the dismal sightings and sensory reactions to post-war Beirut, the spatiotemporal and structural situation of the za’atar within the poem is quite symbolic.

With Origanum syriacum being its scientific name, za’atar is also known by a few others, such as Lebanese oregano and Bible hyssop. Native to the Middle East, the species’ common name of za’atar is also synonymous with the traditional Middle Eastern condiment of the same name, the ingredients combination of which I have mentioned above. In past decades, homemakers of the region would forage wild thyme from the fields to especially concoct the za’atar mix for the manakish, from the root Arabic verb “ naqasha ” meaning “to sculpt, carve out,” with the mix being caressed over flat dough whose base is first punched with indentations to stop the puffing process. 

The technique to the refinement of the za’atar dough is intimate and surpasses the discourses around mere yeast and sugar. In her poem “Eating the Earth,” Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, who is a poet, essayist, and translator with a Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian heritage,  takes its recipe and hand-stretches it into a poem: 

And in the kneading hinge forward, let the weight of what you carry on your shoulders, the luster of your language, shade of your story press into the dough. 

Writing in the second person, the message she weaves may be well resonant among readers of similar backgrounds, who, forced to exile and dislocate to seek security and stable futures, depend on traditional foodstuffs as messengers of home. The word that undercurrents her lines is “possessed”– for Khalaf Tuffaha’s narrative is indeed possessed with a yearning and ache that saturate her every choice of poetic device: 

And on the dough let the green leaves fall, drenched sumac stars flickering among them shards of onion in their midst. Scatter them as the wind would or gather them in the center of this earth and fold them into the tender embrace of the dough, cool and soft beneath their bodies

Here, with the falling of the “green [za’atar] leaves” and the flickering of the “sumac stars,” Khalaf Tuffaha feeds a theme of freedom while pacing her painted image with slowness that contrasts the turbulent life circumstances of the Levantine countries, a backstory to the poem’s tide. The act of sprinkling dried herbs onto dough becomes an expression of care, with the “bodies” of the herbs folded into the “tender embrace of the dough.” Khalaf Tuffaha’s stylistic decision is not mere experimental but an organically purposeful depiction of cultural nostalgia as well as activism through the culinary vessel of the manakish za’atar. In the quoted lines, the speaker not only guides the reader into the preparation steps of the traditional food, but invites them to converse with the emblematic shadow of each factoring ingredient in the process, to knead their indigenous identity, along with all the struggles, into the very fibers of the dough. This herb has a bodily composition that shares the same earthen essence as the distant motherland, she says. Allow it to transport you.

In an interview with The Massachusetts Review , Khalaf Tuffaha was asked whether there is a city or place, real or imagined, that influences her writing, to which she responded:

Yes, absolutely. Places I belong to for having lived there or visited, especially places where my family is rooted. My father’s Jerusalem, the Amman of my childhood, the Damascus of my grandmother’s stories and cuisine and accent. In early childhood, we lived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, then a small and picturesque city on the Red Sea coast (…). Almost every weekend, my family would pack a thermos of tea with mint, pick up fresh baked  mana’eesh–za’atar bread–and head to the beach. My mind is a conch shell, the sound of the waves eternally crashing against that coastline, the fragrance of mint tea and za’atar always present.

And I, readers, I see this all in her poem. The same sentiment of Levantine longing has borne Palestinian-American Noor Hindi’s poem “ORIGINS AND SHATTERED CONCRETE,” published on Foundry . Hindi’s writings visit the lands of Palestine, Jordan, and the United States, having immigrated to the latter at a very young age. This particular poem is heavy on a nostalgia specific to the speaker’s life in Jordan while now an American citizen: 

despite being a temporary visitor, with fingers clutching suitcases, toes steeped in American soil, someone always reminds you of that makeshift hospital on Queen Rania Street where you were born.

The speaker’s longing surfaces through the vessels of reminiscent imagery, with the za’atar overtaking the gustatory, acting as an almost-sacred symbol. Similar to Khalaf Tuffaha’s poem, Hindi’s, too, is written in the second person, with her own self being the only audience: “your name, noor ― as in light ― / spoken with a rolled r, spoken / like it should be.” This particular stylistic choice of distancing the “I” from the narrative and looking inwards instigates a sense of otherness, a division from the self, as though Hindi is observing herself through the eyes of another, quite possibly through the eyes of the people of the land she has immigrated to, where she still may very well be taken aback by the sense of otherness. Yet, this sense of otherness, as Hindi depicts, is only on “some days,” and her decision to incorporate the “some days” idea twice throughout the poem may be to establish a realization that she has already merged into the canvas of the American life, and it is only on “some days” that the yearning comes upon her. Still, it does: “some days you miss / the dusty, littered streets / of your home…/” and “some / days you want to drown / in your grandmother’s black / abaya.” She then flashbacks into a heavy memory, whilst physically yet in the Mediterranean lands: “love resides in arms / so you learned how to / walk that shattered concrete.”  By placing “arms” as a double entendre: on the surface, the plural of “arm” in relation to an embrace, on the deeper level, weaponry, Hindi provides the reasoning behind her learning to walk on shattered concrete in the first place: because there, quite simply, is where she found (finds?) love, albeit its violent structure. Similar to learning how to walk through the shatters, Hindi also “learned” to:

smoke smooth mint hookah, dip pita bread into zaat then zaatar, lay on rooftop patios, haggle in crowded bazaars, speak Arabic

Here, towards the end of the poem, Hindi reveals the culinary undercurrent that corporealizes her Arabian yearning in an almost ritualistic manner: the pita bread dipped into olive oil and then za’atar. In “American Beings,” another 14-part prose poem , published in The Adroit Journal a few years after the “ORIGINS AND SHATTERED CONCRETE” poem’s appearance, Hindi writes: “The breakfast table is my family’s connection to Palestine, to home, to Jordan. In this way, eating is sacred — and dipping pita bread into olive oil is an act of love.”  When connecting this statement to Hindi’s former idea of “love residing in arms,” we can understand that she has now, in the shelter of her American household, away from the “shattered concrete” of the Middle East, found a way to experience a fiber of that distant, overseas love: upon the altar of the breakfast table, through the gesture of dipping the pita bread into olive oil and za’atar, an act that carries Palestine and Jordan, and her Levantine roots, to her.

Hindi reveals the culinary undercurrent that corporealizes her Arabian yearning in an almost ritualistic manner.

This herb is so much more than taste and tradition. Now, I’ll be incorporating a different speaker-food substance frame into the long-standing tradition of consuming za’atar, one where the consumer is placed in a secondary positioning to the food, with the only relation being palatal, nonetheless significant, through a poem by Hedy Sabbagh Habra. 

Sabbagh Habra is a poet, artist, and essayist of Lebanese origin. She was born and raised in Egypt, but has lived in both the former and the latter before moving to Belgium and then settling in the United States. Her family left Lebanon at the onset of the civil war, as she stated in an interview with KNOT Magazine . In her prose poem, “After Twenty Five Years,” the speaker, who visits Beirut twenty-five years after instability forced them to leave, laments the loss of a Beirut they once knew. In the aforementioned interview, Sabbagh Habra noted that the poetry collection The Taste of the Earth , in which the poem appears, weaves together “personal memories” with the “larger history” of her countries of origin. To that effect, she “resorted to recollections revolving around the senses.” Fittingly, given the poet’s attribution of “memoire” to the collection, the poem is written in first person: “I came to Beirut to retrace my steps but its warmth enveloped me in its ample mantle through streets I didn’t recognize.” Throughout the poem, a bleak mood overrides the lines, with images like: “mandalun windows…disfigured by open wounds,” “a jogger…steeped in lost footsteps,” “the water seems darker,” and “the sea’s mist suffused with bitterness.” Among all the dismal sightings and sensory reactions to post-war Beirut, the spatiotemporal and structural situation of the za’atar within the poem is quite symbolic. Composed of three stanzas, the poem has 11 lines. At the central division of that number is line 5.5, which synchronically is the line that captures the warmth of the za’atar trope:  “Only the vendor of crisp sesame breads makes me feel at home; with a smile, he fills my kaak with fragrant zaatar. ” Gastrocritically, through this central emplacement, the speaker not only translates a narrative message but also predicates the power of za’atar to as one at the heart of the evocation of feelings of home. By dismantling the word choice of the adverb “only” at the inception of this significant line, the reader is zoomed into the responsibility placed upon the za’atar, for amid all the sense of detachment that the returned expatriate experiences, it is only the za’atar kaak , and by association the vendor, that rekindle the speaker’s feeling of belonging. 

Food serves to mark what separates or unites a community, and how an individual perceives themselves in a certain locale.

Food serves to mark what separates or unites a community, and how an individual perceives themselves in a certain locale. For many of the displaced peoples of the Levant landscapes who have long taken off in all directions, the root connection is through a mere transported product of its fragment of earth, and their transoceanic poetry reveals the attempt at homeland mimesis through infusing metonyms into said product. 

It’s no surprise that literature has been recognized as a valuable repository for ethnography. Writers have long been tapping into the multi-layered meanings in foodstuffs that surface socio-cultural stories, and in the literature of the Levantine diaspora, I find a culinary ripeness seeping such Mediterranean memories I had forgotten to unfold from my suitcase. 

It is 8:16 AM UTC when I decide to end this attempt at essay. 10:16 in Beirut. I video call mom to wish her a lovely day. In the screen there is her and dad on the balcony, smiling and showing me the breakfast spread of fresh manakish za’atar, labneh , olives, and mint leaves. Yalla , mom says, we’re waiting for you to start eating. Կը սպասենք։ 

We’re waiting.

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Transition Words

As a "part of speech" transition words are used to link words, phrases or sentences. They help the reader to progress from one idea (expressed by the author) to the next idea. Thus, they help to build up coherent relationships within the text.

Transitional Words

This structured list of commonly used English transition words — approximately 200, can be considered as quasi complete. It can be used (by students and teachers alike) to find the right expression. English transition words are essential, since they not only connect ideas, but also can introduce a certain shift, contrast or opposition, emphasis or agreement, purpose, result or conclusion, etc. in the line of argument. The transition words and phrases have been assigned only once to somewhat artificial categories, although some words belong to more than one category.

There is some overlapping with prepositions and postpositions, but for the purpose of usage and completeness of this concise guide, I did not differentiate.

Linking & Connecting Words — Part 1/2

Agreement / Addition / Similarity

Opposition / limitation / contradiction, examples / support / emphasis, cause / condition / purpose, effect / consequence / result, conclusion / summary / restatement, time / chronology / sequence, space / location / place.

The transition words like also, in addition, and, likewise , add information , reinforce ideas , and express agreement with preceding material.

in the first place

not only ... but also

as a matter of fact

in like manner

in addition

coupled with

in the same fashion / way

first, second, third

in the light of

not to mention

to say nothing of

equally important

by the same token

identically

together with

comparatively

correspondingly

furthermore

additionally

Transition phrases like but , rather and or , express that there is evidence to the contrary or point out alternatives , and thus introduce a change the line of reasoning ( contrast ).

although this may be true

in contrast

different from

of course ..., but

on the other hand

on the contrary

at the same time

in spite of

even so / though

be that as it may

(and) still

even though

nevertheless

nonetheless

notwithstanding

These transitional phrases present specific conditions or intentions .

in the event that

granted (that)

as / so long as

on (the) condition (that)

for the purpose of

with this intention

with this in mind

in the hope that

to the end that

for fear that

in order to

seeing / being that

provided that

only / even if

inasmuch as

These transitional devices (like especially ) are used to introduce examples as support , to indicate importance or as an illustration so that an idea is cued to the reader.

in other words

to put it differently

for one thing

as an illustration

in this case

for this reason

to put it another way

that is to say

with attention to

by all means

important to realize

another key point

first thing to remember

most compelling evidence

must be remembered

point often overlooked

to point out

on the positive side

on the negative side

specifically

surprisingly

significantly

particularly

in particular

for example

for instance

to demonstrate

to emphasize

to enumerate

Some of these transition words ( thus, then, accordingly, consequently, therefore, henceforth ) are time words that are used to show that after a particular time there was a consequence or an effect .

Note that for and because are placed before the cause/reason. The other devices are placed before the consequences or effects.

as a result

under those circumstances

in that case

because the

consequently

accordingly

These transition words and phrases conclude , summarize and / or restate ideas, or indicate a final general statement . Also some words (like therefore ) from the Effect / Consequence category can be used to summarize.

as can be seen

generally speaking

in the final analysis

all things considered

as shown above

in the long run

given these points

as has been noted

for the most part

in conclusion

to summarize

by and large

on the whole

in any event

in either case

These transitional words (like finally ) have the function of limiting, restricting, and defining time . They can be used either alone or as part of adverbial expressions .

at the present time

from time to time

sooner or later

up to the present time

to begin with

in due time

in the meantime

in a moment

without delay

all of a sudden

at this instant

first, second

immediately

straightaway

by the time

occasionally

Many transition words in the time category ( consequently; first, second, third; further; hence; henceforth; since; then, when; and whenever ) have other uses.

Except for the numbers ( first, second, third ) and further they add a meaning of time in expressing conditions, qualifications, or reasons. The numbers are also used to add information or list examples . Further is also used to indicate added space as well as added time.

These transition words are often used as part of adverbial expressions and have the function to restrict, limit or qualify space . Quite a few of these are also found in the Time category and can be used to describe spatial order or spatial reference.

in the middle

to the left/right

in front of

on this side

in the distance

here and there

in the foreground

in the background

in the center of

adjacent to

opposite to 

List of Transition Words

Transition Words are also sometimes called (or put in the category of) Connecting Words. Please feel free to download them via this link to the category page: Linking Words & Connecting Words as a PDF. It contains all the transition words listed on this site. The image to the left gives you an impression how it looks like.

Usage of Transition Words in Essays

Transition words and phrases are vital devices for essays , papers or other literary compositions. They improve the connections and transitions between sentences and paragraphs. They thus give the text a logical organization and structure (see also: a List of Synonyms ).

All English transition words and phrases (sometimes also called 'conjunctive adverbs') do the same work as coordinating conjunctions : they connect two words, phrases or clauses together and thus the text is easier to read and the coherence is improved.

Usage: transition words are used with a special rule for punctuation : a semicolon or a period is used after the first 'sentence', and a comma is almost always used to set off the transition word from the second 'sentence'.

Example 1: People use 43 muscles when they frown; however, they use only 28 muscles when they smile.

Example 2: however, transition words can also be placed at the beginning of a new paragraph or sentence - not only to indicate a step forward in the reasoning, but also to relate the new material to the preceding thoughts..

Use a semicolon to connect sentences, only if the group of words on either side of the semicolon is a complete sentence each (both must have a subject and a verb, and could thus stand alone as a complete thought).

Further helpful readings about expressions, writing and grammar: Compilation of Writing Tips How to write good   ¦   Correct Spelling Study by an English University

Are you using WORD for writing professional texts and essays? There are many easy Windows Shortcuts available which work (almost) system-wide (e.g. in every programm you use).