TOK prompt

1.What is the relationship between personal experience and knowledge?

Knowledge has been created due to experiences that we face in our daily day and sooner or later we
are able to understand complicated concepts based on what we go through. The meaning behind each
word that we come across does not always have a meaning towards us unless we are able to relate what
exactly that person is trying to express and for that to happen time is a key factor of learning and
knowledge. The more time we spent on a particular topic the higher the chances of learning knowledge
and being able to accumulate all your experiences simultaneously putting them across as a thought in
your head.

The object that I have chosen is a letter that was written by my grandad before he passed away. I never
really got to spend time with my grandfather and only met him once or twice in 2018, only to get
informed that he passed away 2 years ago, and I knew nothing about it. My family never really
understood him very well he was a very silent man but of strong words, whenever he spoke the whole
room would quite down and listen because his words were very majestic.

At the age of about 14 I started reading the last letter that he wrote before he passed away and me
being that young, I could not really understand what he was saying all I knew was that he said before
dying that he wanted me to read it and keep the letter with me. I used to read it every single day, but I
had no clue what it meant, and I refused to ask for anybody’s help since it was given to me for a reason,
and it was for me to understand. The next year 2019 I fell into severe depression for the whole year and
found it hard and by the time I had completely stopped reading the letter. It was mid 2020 when I got
out of my depression and as I was cleaning up my drawers that is when I came across the letter once
again and for old time’s sake, I decide to read it. For the first time ever, I was able to understand what it
was trying to say and that is when I decided to seek my family’s help and ask if there was anything else
that he wanted me to keep. My father realized that he forgot to give me the watch that belonged to him
that ever since he was sick, he told him to please give it to Angel once he died. I received the watch and
tried finding the connection between the letter and the watch at last I finally understood that all that he
was trying to express is how precious time is and that If you do not look around once or twice you might
just skip life. My grandfather was a workaholic and he spent most of his time working and getting money
for the family which was based on business trips going out of the country. In the letter from what I
understood is that he regretted not spending enough of time around the people that loved him and that
he loved specially his wife as she spent most of her life at home taking care of the children. He
expressed how the good old days were far gone and that now he is leaving without being able to make
up for all the time he could I spent with the family. He expresses how lost he was back in the day and
how we should have prioritized his time well as now he was suffering emotionally due to his own actions
and so did the family. At the end of the letter, he says: “I give you time in hopes that you don’t use it like
I did.”

My grandfather expressed how each step that you take in life has meaning, especially the early
steps are the ones that count the most and will shape your future. My grandfather was a man of
his word and he worked hard to achieve the thing that he had. To me he is someone that I
always look up to and I always asked him many questions when we met one another on very
rare occasions.
 As I finally got accepted into Woodstock School as I was packing up the shoes that I was taking
to school at the far end of the closet I spotted a brand-new box which I could not recall having in
my closet earlier. I opened the box and I saw a brand-new pair of classy brown shoes that were
my size. On the top of the shoes there was a small white paper that said “Every step Counts”

This is how experiences shapes knowledge it might take a lifetime to understand how worth a single
thing can be or maybe even two lifetimes. In my case it took 5 years to understand a single piece of
paper, and this is how life works you learn from the mistakes that you made or from the mistakes that
others made for you not to repeat them. This is how experiences shape your knowledge and
understanding of your day-to-day life and how they impact your reasoning and understanding the
concepts that life surrounds you with.

-Angel Breitinger