It all starts with a single seed.
A tiny, imperceptible seed of thought or emotion. An uneasy feeling that you could swear wasn’t there a minute ago.
It has no apparent trigger. It’s not the outcome of a recent occurrence. It doesn’t have any visible relevance to the previous moments of the day.
Like the Big Bang, it expands within you in less than milliseconds. What was an annoying moment becomes an overwhelming state of mind.
There’s no going back now. The pull is too strong and it warps everything around it. The word “right” is not a part of your mind’s vocabulary anymore.
There are no whites. No goods. No positive sides.
You’re in the land of jet black.
The forest is so dense that you can’t even see the grass or the road. Everywhere you look is trunks, locking you in like a prisoner.
There is no light. No tunnel. No way out and no way back.
You try to think back to the moment all the grays disappeared but all you can recall is being here, feeling desperate. It’s as if you have never been elsewhere. You were born here and you will die here.
You want to yell but words won’t cooperate. You want to cry but your eyes are dry. You want to ask for help but there’s no one around.
You’re alone.
Anger rises within you. “Stop this,” you yell at your mind. You think of all the suffering people in the world. The people with real problems.
You start naming the good things in your life, but it doesn’t even flinch. The goods morph into not so great. They might even be bad. It has taken over your sense of judgement, perception and memory. It doesn’t like to leave loose ends.
Maybe resistance is a stupid idea.
Giving up seems to be the best option. Just thinking about it covers you with a sense of relief. Maybe the dark is not so bad after all. Maybe you’ve belonged here all along.
The phone rings. You say, “Hello?”
The voice is cheerful. “Hi, honey, just checking up on you.”
A single tear escapes.
Previously? Cynical Copout.
I’m fed up with cynicism.
I didn’t really encounter large doses of cynicism until I came to the United States. In college, when people acted bitter and negative, I kept looking for reasons. I couldn’t understand why a teenager, attending a decent college with a healthy body and a caring family would have reason to be so scornful. What had already happened in his life to make him so distrustful and so full of hatred?
My childhood, while not uneventful, was pretty decent compared to how it could have been. We had ups and downs but no major calamities. I lived through a divorce and a remarriage, way too much teasing for a soul like mine to handle, and a constant lack of belonging. But I never turned bitter. I’m not asking for a pat in the back. I had other emotions to deal with. I was sad to the point of misery. I chose to run away, leaving behind a family I adored and starting my life all over again. It just never occurred to me to be a cynic.
So for the longest time, I kept thinking that these people must have had a much more miserable life than I had had and that I had no right to judge how they dealt with it. It wasn’t like I’d dealt with my issues maturely. Running away hardly deserved praise.
Now that years have passed, I’ve decided that just like running away, cynicism is total crap. It’s useless to the person who hides behind it and to the world in general. Talk about a wasted emotion.
Just like running away, a cynical attitude is a copout. It’s choosing to hide behind a mask that will be used as an excuse not to take any responsibility. It’s taking the easy way out.
It’s so much easier to sit there and complain. It’s so much easier to distrust. It’s so much easier to hide behind the protective walls of anger.
I’ve come to believe that having faith is a much harder emotion than lacking it. Not in the religious sense, though that case might apply too, but in the day-to-day interactions. Expecting a person to cross you gives you an excuse to feel justified when the person does, intentionally or not, end up doing something that’s not in your favor. When kicked, it’s so much simpler to say “See I told you so?” or “What’s the point of getting up when I’ll end up back down here again?”
What’s hard is picking yourself up and trying again. What’s hard is trusting others. What’s hard is smiling and being happy. Believing in yourself. Believing in others. Believing that there is still so much you can do for the world and having the courage to try.
Recently, I was telling my manager about my intentions of starting a non-profit organization and he kept telling me that it was a waste of my time, my passion, and my intelligence. He said that I can’t change the world. I looked at him and simply replied, “You’re wrong.“
What if everyone felt the way he did?
It’s easy to be cynical. It’s hard to give it all you got.
I dare you to be happy. I dare you to trust others. I dare you to drop your mask and put yourself out there. I dare you to give it all you got.
I double-dare you.
Previously? More Than Genes
I’ve always been fascinated with how little we know about our parents.
A few years ago, when I first started writing, I went around and asked my friends how their parents had met. Many of them had no idea. (Most of the ones who did, unfortunately had a really boring story, but that’s another issue.)
I remember being appalled at how little we knew about the people who brought us into this world and with whom we spent many waking moments of our childhood and adolescence. I’d never thought to ask my grandmother what kind of a daughter my mom was or my father about his memories of boarding school.
As someone who lives really far away from her family, one of my biggest fears has always involved a rapidly spreading disease taking away one of my parents before I had a chance to say goodbye. I specifically didn’t say “before I was ready” since I’m not sure I’d ever be prepared for the demise of either of my parents. But the fear of not even making it to Turkey in time used to overwhelm me enough to consider moving back home.
I decided that I wanted to get to know my parents better. Like many caregivers in one’s life (i.e. teachers, psychologists, etc.) interaction with parents tends to start as a one-sided relationship. Obviously, in the beginning, you’re too small and can’t take care of yourself. Your parents are fully focused on you and you’re often focused on their focusing on you. You don’t spend too much energy trying to figure out what their life outside involves, as you often don’t want them to have a life besides the one with you. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to everyone. It did to me. I always cried when my parents went out at nights. I wouldn’t care what they were going out to do, all I cared was that they were leaving me.
Over the years, my relationship with my parents changed and I found out a lot about their relationship with each other, the early days of their marriage, their family dynamics with their parents and siblings. But I still don’t feel like I know my parents as well as I want to.
I often wonder what their aspirations were before they met each other. Did they have another significant other that they almost married? Did they fight as much as my sister and I with their siblings? Do they feel like they’ve achieved what they set out to do? Did they even set out to do something? Did they always only want to have two kids? What’s their happiest childhood memory? What about the saddest?
I just wish I could have met my parents when they were kids. Would I have liked them? Were they too quiet? Too popular? Too geeky? I wish I could know more about their own childhood and pranks and naughty things they did that drove their parents crazy.
So I decided I wanted to take vacations with each parent separately. A week where all we talk about is their childhood. Their life. I feel like if I get to know them better, it won’t hurt so much to know that they might not be around forever.
Which is bullshit since it will hurt like mad regardless.
But at least this way I won’t feel like I’ve missed out on the chance of knowing the people whose genetic makeup merged to create me. This way a part of them will live through me and I can tell their stories to my children and my children’s children.
This way I won’t regret not knowing my parents.
Previously? Artistic Expressions.
I’ve always favored high Renaissance art over most other periods.
I think there are two reasons for my fascination and awe with that specific period. The first reason is not specific to the artists of that time, but it was strongly exercised. Most of the elements in the paintings of that time either present a story or have objects which represent icons of some idea or belief.
I’m quite sure I’ve mentioned previously how I like that this sort of art rewards its viewer for having done his homework. If you know that a pair of shoes symbolizes marriage the painting containing them takes on a new level of meaning for you. I like that almost every item has a purpose. It somehow implies that the artist’s job was harder since he had to adhere to certain symbols and tell a specific story and the artists relaying the same story found profoundly differing ways to envision the same scenario.
The other reason I love Renaissance art is the preciseness of the strokes. The realness of the imagery. The incredible resemblance of the picture to an actual scene. It is the lack of that very essence that gave me a dissatisfied feeling when I looked at an impressionist painting. The blurry look made me feel like the painting was unfinished. Like the artist cheated and gave us the feeling of being there without having to work hard to create the details. They lacked the meticulousness I enjoyed.
For me, it was as if the fact that you could replicate real world with its minute detail made you a qualified artist. Cause anyone can splash paint onto an empty canvas, but not everyone can draw the curves of a woman’s body or the branches of a tree realistically.
Last week, I went to the Metropolitan Museum and spent a long time looking at the works of some of the most famous impressionist painters. I had never previously seen these works anywhere besides a book. I’d never seen them in their full three-dimensional glory. As I stared at the canvases, I was awed by the dichotomy of the lack of meaning when viewed close-up and the scenery that emerged as I moved back, away from the painting. It seemed that with each stroke, the painter must have always kept the big image in his head and had total control over what the stroke meant for the painting as a whole.
Today I watched one of Jake’s friends paint a scene here in Martha’s Vineyard with watercolors. I marveled at how quickly a picture emerged with each movement of her brush. I was fascinated at how she wasn’t really concerned with each angle being correct and each color matching the world precisely. I loved the idea of letting go of the need to be so tightly coupled with the subject of the painting.
I realized that even my favorite painting style represented something about my personality. That I had enjoyed the methodical, mathematical world of exact replication and symbols over the loose and relaxed. The more I thought about it, the more it felt good to let go. Suddenly, making your own paintings, listening to something from within and combining that with the beauty of nature seemed so much more powerful and rewarding.
Maybe this is how letting go starts: one painting at a time.
Previously? Tradition.
Traditions are at the core of our daily life.
I don’t know whether the appropriate word is tradition or ritual but the concept is similar in this context. There are certain things we do every day/month/year on a certain date to celebrate an occasion or to remember something or even to forget.
To me, Jewish religion has always been all about the traditions. My family isn’t very religious so I never learned Hebrew. (Well, actually, I did speak it fluently when I was four, but that was mostly cause we spent an entire summer in Israel and I was enrolled in kindergarten, but upon our return to Istanbul I promptly forgot all of it.) We didn’t go to synagogue much or light candles on Friday night. But we did observe the major holidays and we told and retold the stories. Today, when someone asks me why I still fast on Yom Kippur or suffer a week without bread during Passover, I can recite the full story of why we observe that specific holiday. I still recognize and appreciate all the people who suffered so that I could be here and I agree with the idea that we need to remember our past and not take things for granted. But, to be honest, I don’t observe the holidays for those reasons.
I do it cause it’s become a personal tradition.
Both my mom and my sister suffer from health problems that disallow them from fasting. My family is miles away and I am often alone on the eve of Yom Kippur, but I fast. Cause I always have.
It’s so engrained at the core of who I am that I don’t even see it as an option anymore. It’s not something that can be reconsidered; it’s a part of me.
But religion is an extreme example for my point. I realized this week that we have little self-traditions that at one point became something that we don’t consider from year to year, we just do them. For Jake and me, coming to Martha’s Vineyard to celebrate Fourth of July is one of those yearly rituals. The entire family collects at the island house and often there is a guest family as well. It’s very low key but it has become a tradition.
I didn’t appreciate the strength of this tradition until this year. As I mentioned a few days ago, I recently found out that I most likely have a third herniated disc on my back. My neck is causing large quantities of pain over my back, my arm and my spine in general. I’ve been depressed and grouchy. So when Jake mentioned our plans, I told him that maybe going to the Vineyard when I felt so crappy wasn’t such a good idea.
Hell broke loose. (Well, it didn’t. mostly because Jake’s such a wonderful person and didn’t give me the guilt trip that I was already feeling.) I could tell he was sad but I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t spend enough time caring about his feelings.
As Saturday got closer and closer, I realized that I got depressed at the idea of not going, too. We always went to the Vineyard this weekend and now I was the reason we weren’t going to go. I realized that breaking this tradition meant that I was admitting something was seriously wrong with my body. And I didn’t like the idea that something was so wrong that we would alter a tradition. So what if my back hurt some? Staying in New York represented caving into my sickness and it would be downhill from there.
So I didn’t.
I bought a neck brace and we took the trip slowly. As I stare out the window to the endless water and trees, I am really glad we came. My back already feels better, my nerves are calmer, the wind is caressing my face and the kitty is giving me curious looks. There’s a reason this trip became a tradition.
And you don’t mess with traditions.
Previously? Horny.
Some people are turned on by power.
Others, by money.
No matter what people tell you, there’s something non-physical about their partner that turns them on.
I don’t mean to undermine the importance or relevance of physical attraction. Often, it’s the first thing that people notice and at times it can completely nullify your chances of seeing someone more than once.
Physical attraction is extremely important, but for me, it’s not necessarily the outcome of a physical trait. There are certain personality traits about a person that can make me physically attracted to him.
Love is one of those things. With every boyfriend I’ve ever had, I’ve gotten more and more attracted to him as I fell deeper and deeper in love.
Power doesn’t turn me on; neither does money, not even education necessarily. I’ve met some extremely well educated people who make me want to puke as soon as they utter a word.
Kindness turns me on and strong family values. I think I’m not the only woman who likes men who are kind to dogs, babies and the elderly. I am turned on by patience. By someone who’s truly interested in what I think. Someone who makes me laugh and doesn’t have a bitter and cynical look on life.
Yesterday I found something new.
One of my teammates and I went to a meeting with a research person who wrote an application that we’re supposed to use for our client-side applications. This one hour meeting grew to four and a half hours as the guy gave us a full background on why they had built this package and how excited he was about it and some of the problems they were aware of, etc. While I could tell that my teammate was about to pass out from boredom, I was so excited that my neck pain disappeared for some time.
I discovered that geeks turn me on.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. There are several kinds of geeks. One kind thinks he’s better than the rest of the world and looks down at everyone who asks questions. This breed is often bitter and condescending.
The other kind, the one that excites me way more than it should, is the kind who is so thrilled by the work that he wants to share it with the whole world. He comes into your office and says, “Look what I figured out, isn’t it neat?” He’s not showing off, he’s like a little kid who discovered a new toy. He’s giddy.
Maybe that’s what really turns me on. The giddiness. The intoxicating level of fascination with something that is obviously driven by large doses of passion. And that turns me on.
It’s contagious.
It’s not the intelligence or the technology. It’s not the knowledge.
It’s the child-like ability of exercising pure joy.
And this guy had it. I sat there, getting drunk by his love for it. At that moment he was much hotter than Tom Cruise. (Okay, so Tom doesn’t do it for everyone. Put your own hottie here, since that’s not my point anyhow.)
My list of favorite people just got incremented by one.
What turns you on?
Previously? Durable.
They say girls have a soft spot for their dads.
I’m not sure of the accuracy of that sentiment but it definitely applied to my mom.
My grandfather passed away eleven years ago. He got an extremely rare disease that practically made his bones melt. He was fine one day and gone within a week. In the week after my grandfather’s passing we had many visitors but my mom was mostly in a daze.
One of her clients approached her and said, “May God never give you as much pain as you can endure.”
I still remember the surprised look my mom gave the woman. She thought the client was inappropriate and uncaring.
It took us years to fully understand the depth of the woman’s wisdom.
Humans are capable of handling large doses of pain. Really large doses.
I spend hours of my day worrying about the stupidest things. I worry about work and performing well. Increasing the speed of a stored procedure. Laying out a usable interface. Debugging an executable that keeps hanging.
On the weekend I worry about the day ending. Not spending enough time writing my novel. That I still suck at the saxophone and that I’m out of milk.
I really do worry about the stupidest things. I get upset and I let it get to me.
Last thanksgiving I hurt my back, without doing anything. After a month of struggling with doctors and turning suicidal thanks to steroids, I found out that I had two herniated discs on my back. I spent the last seven months making twice weekly trips to the physical therapist, taking pills that ate the lining of my stomach, and getting poked by acupuncture needles that caused my body to react in the most unusual ways. I felt like crap. I got better. And I felt like crap again.
Last night, my neck started hurting. I felt like someone was sticking a wooden pole where my skull met my neck. As Jake told me about his day, my left side slowly started to fall asleep. It was as if thousands of ants walked up and down my arm.
I took some Vioxx and went to bed. I figured I must be exaggerating or hallucinating the pain.
Well, the morning greeted me with a big smile and even more pain. Less awareness on my left side, acute pain on the arm. Three hours of begging on the phone and my doctor said I should go over there. He said back pain doesn’t move up the spine and had I been to a neurologist yet?
Not what I wanted to hear.
I go to the doctor, I wait in the office, I walk in, he pokes me with paperclips. He says it looks like I might have another slipped disc, this time on my neck.
Suddenly, everything else doesn’t seem so worrisome anymore.
I only hope I don’t have to have as much pain as I can endure.
Previously? Museum.
Some things are best done alone.
There is a long list of actions which are more fun with a multiple people. For me, traveling, dancing, going to the movies and dining are some of those.
Then I have the ones that I often do alone but enjoy much more in couples. Like bathing and sleeping.
Finally, I have a whole set that I prefer to do alone. Reading, writing my book, and watching people make that list.
So does going to the museum.
After I left the hairdresser, I decided I had to finally see the Blake exhibit at the Met. My hairdresser is six blocks from the Met and it was a lovely day so I started strolling along Fifth Avenue. The Blake exhibit had just closed but thanks to a recent post in photographica, I knew my first stop would be the roof garden, displaying the works of Shapiro.
   
Up until recently I didn’t know much about African art and hadn’t had any exposure to it. Last fall, in my art class, our teacher talked so much about tribal arts that I became completely fascinated with these works. I love the incredible level of detail given to each piece. These works are symbolic and most were used as part of a performance. They represented so much of the culture and belief system that we can deduce a lot about their priorities through these. I can sit in the room and stare at these carvings for hours at a time.
  
  
I believe that enjoying a piece of art is an experience best lived individually. Each person gets something different from being in a museum, especially one as large as the Metropolitan. There are pieces that I just walk by and ones that make me want to sit and stare for literally hours at a time. When I’m with someone else, I feel pressure to enjoy each piece equally. I worry about my friend being bored or feeling rushed. It’s one thing to visit a small showing of a few paintings, though I would still probably prefer to go to it on my own, and a completely different one to visit a large museum with some of the world’s most awe-inspiring works of art.
Today I felt really glad to live in New York City. Glad that I could just walk a few blocks and take however long I wanted to look at the brushstrokes of Seurat. I didn’t have to rush it into a weekend and drag my friends along.
I had the luxury of enjoying it on my own.
Previously? Movies.
This was an imaginary compilation that I was assembling in my head; all my happiest and proudest moments, cut together into a five-minute edited greatest hits of my life.
“What would you have in your lifetime highlights video, Neal?” I asked him.
He thought for a while and said nervously “Getting a B in my geography O’ level.”
He looked hurt when I burst out laughing.
“Oh come on…” I said, “You’ve got to do better than that. You can’t have that on your tombstone – Here lies Neil Evans. He got a B in his geography O’ level. What have you done that you really loved and will always remember? What are you really proud of?” – John O’Farrell, Walking into the Wind.
Reading the above dialogue made me think of what would be in my five-minute movie.
Happiest moments are easy: getting into Carnegie Mellon, getting my green card, most of my days with Jake, and my sister’s giving birth to my twin nephews.
Most of my happiest moments revolve around school, reaching a goal I’d been striving for for a long time, and my family.
The proudest, however, are a bit more complicated. I’m proud of my family and their accomplishments, most importantly their incredible capacity for love. But this movie is supposed to be about my proud moments. So I’m not sure their achievements qualify.
My first proud moment would probably be the same as a happy one. Getting into a college in United States, especially one that has a good reputation for computer science, was a huge accomplishment for someone with my grades and it was something I’d been dreaming about since I was twelve.
During college, I’ve done a few things I’m proud of, but one of my most taxing moments was when a male friend of one of my residents (I was a Resident Assistant on two floors of an all-girl section of one of the dormitories) was depressed. Suicidal is probably more accurate. I didn’t really know this boy all that well but he’d been on my floor before and I spent most of the evening talking to him and I stayed in that room and listened to him for hours. While I’m totally aware that it most likely has nothing to do with my actions or words, seeing that boy around a few days later and having him hug me made me feel proud of myself. That would probably make it to my video.
So would graduation. I am the first member of my family to graduate from college. My mom dropped out of high school and my dad out of college. My sister didn’t even attempt at college. So graduating and getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees simultaneously was a very proud moment for my family and me.
Most recently, I am proud of the fact that I didn’t let New York and the investment banking life get to me. That I had the balls to give up a lot of money and reduce my work to part-time so that I could do more volunteer work.
I have a long way to go. I want my life to be full of happy and proud moments. I want to look back and say that I had a great life and I did everything I wanted to do. I want to make sure I had the guts to live it to its fullest.
What would go on your five-minute film?
Previously? Intelligent.
It’s amazing to me how many people use words without really thinking about what they’re trying to say. Especially adjectives and adverbs, we’re so fast to pile them up. One of the guys I work with always utters the word “interesting” which makes my skin crawl.
It’s not that I don’t like the word interesting, it’s just that it means nothing whatsoever in the context in which he uses it. I say, “One of the reasons we want to split up these services is to ensure we can have deals where each tranche can offer a different product.”
He goes, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”
Huh?
Recently, especially during this seemingly unending design phase, interesting has become my least favorite reply. “Strangle” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind. (that’s what I get for reading Choke in one sitting.)
I’ve also been thinking about the use of “intelligent” a lot lately. What do you think qualifies someone as intelligent?
Since I am a programmer and grew up with a strong math background, I’ve always heard people tell me that my ability to add up two numbers in my head quickly makes me intelligent. Or the fact that I scored high on the Math SATs and GMATs. I must be intelligent if I know how to code or if I did well at school. If I can speak several foreign languages. For some reason, people surrounding me have always associated intelligence with either math or sciences.
What about people who are extremely good with history or geography? Are they not intelligent?
How about artists and musicians? Poets?
People at the top of an artistic field are often referred to as geniuses. Leonardo Da Vinci was a genius. But then again, so was Albert Einstein and I don’t think his artistic skills were well developed ( though I could be wrong about this as it’s just a guess). So genius, I think, is used for people whom we consider at the very top of their field. Someone at an extraordinary level. Which gives me the warm fuzzies cause it doesn’t seem to discriminate on topic.
Intelligence, however, doesn’t work that way. At least not in my experience. You’re a genetic engineer? You must be intelligent. You wrote an award-winning fiction novel. Well, you’re great but not necessarily intelligent. It just doesn’t seem all that fair.
I must say that I have the highest respect for people who know the words that show up in the GREs. I’ve been trying to memorize some of those words and my brain simply refuses to cooperate. The math and analytical sections are no problem at all but as soon as I hit the antonyms, I’m ready to give it all up. I don’t need a PhD that bad. Really.
If intelligence was all about math and analysis and GREs were supposed to test your level of intelligence, why have those stupid words at all?
Now I know you’re telling yourself that I have two flaws in my logic. One being that I assume the GREs are worth anything. And you’re right. I don’t think they are and I think that’s pretty common knowledge. But I was just using it as an example and not as a basis for my argument on why non-math and science oriented topics should also be included in measuring someone’s level of intelligence.
The other flaw you might want to point out is that I assumed that a strong vocabulary isn’t a sign of intelligence. And that’s exactly my point. What is intelligence? What makes you define someone as an intelligent person?
I guess I define it as someone with strong deduction skills, a solid and well-rounded set of knowledge and an ability to apply the knowledge to their life and work.
What do you think? Tell me.
Addendum on june 24: this article seemed to be adressing exactly the issues I was trying to raise, so I thought you might find it interesting.
Previously? Alone.
I used to be a very private person.
I always thought that my problems were my private business and that no one needed to know those things about me. My mother, on the other hand, believes on the public distribution of information. No matter what the issue was, she’d find a way to bring it up in conversation.
“I was talking to Stella today and she was talking about how she just had a breast reduction and how her doctor was so great….”
“Rita just told me about how her son had his herniation fixed. She says it’s a real simple operation”
Whatever my concern might be, it just so happened that someone else would mention it to my mom that very day.
Yeah, Right.
We’d fight endlessly about how she couldn’t possibly keep anything to herself. Privacy wasn’t something my mom understood very clearly.
Recently I’ve been having a bit of a change of heart on this matter. I still believe in the importance and relevance of a right to privacy. If I want something kept a secret, my family and friends who happened, for one reason or another, to find out about it, should respect my wishes.
The part I’ve been rethinking is the desperate need for secrecy.
While we glorify individuality, I think we all, on some level, feel the need to be a part of something. People like to be able to relate to each other. We feel most alone when we think we’re the only person who’s been faced with an unfair disadvantage.
How come I’m the only person who develops cancer at the age of twenty?
Why do I have to wear braces as an adult? No one else does, I will look like a freak.
The thing is, you’re not alone. You’re never alone. You’re not the only one who has cancer or wears braces as an adult. You’re not the only one who lost a loved one or can’t have a baby. You’re not the only one who’s been cheated on or married an already married person.
While everyone handles a situation in his or her own individual ways and there are no clear-cut solutions to a problem, sometimes all you need to know is that you’re not the only one. And putting aside the emotional benefits, at times there are even practical reasons for sharing.
If you’re suffering from an unusual illness, it might benefit you to share that with someone because they might know of a new cure that’s being tested or a doctor whose specialty is your disease. Why not benefit from that? And you’ll never know about all this information and sources around you unless you speak up.
While I still don’t condone casually bringing up a subject you might be touchy about, I do think that using the people whom you trust around you and sharing isn’t really a bad thing. It’s surprising how much you’ll find out just by saying a few words. It’s amazing how many people are going through or have already gone through the very same thing.
If you knew they could help you, would you talk then? If your answer is yes, then remember that life is not an open notebook and nothing is for free. You must give some to get some.
And if your answer is no, I’d challenge you to give it a try next time. Start with just sharing it with one person. See what happens.
You might be surprised.
Previously? Not So Common.
How common is common sense?
I’ve always thought that the idea behind common sense is that there is a well of information out there somewhere that all humans are somehow tapped into. Or even something genetically transmitted from parents to children.
At least that’s how we behave when we run into someone who we think lacks in that department. We wonder, ‘where was this person raised, in outer space?’
So I’ve been thinking about what goes into what we consider common sense. I tried to think of examples of what I consider common sense and see how and where I learned them.
The first one that sprung to my mind was the ‘make sure to be aware of your surroundings when you walk’ idea. Anyone who’s been raised in a city knows that it’s crucial for your personal safety to know this bit of common sense. It’s extremely common, however, for a small town person to not have this bit of information, which is something they quickly learn once they’ve been in the city for a few days and are mugged. (Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit.) It looks like we pick up some amount of common sense from the environment in which we’re raised.
On a similar topic, I’ve worked with a girl who never notices subtle hints. If I’m upset and ask a friend to go for a walk, she’d jump in and say “Can I come along, too?” Not that we didn’t like her or enjoy her company, but she didn’t seem to realize when it wasn’t really appropriate for her to invite herself. I kept wondering how she’d managed to make it through her teenage years without having been totally burnt. Learning when to talk and how to act is a series of common sense tricks we pickup from our family and surroundings. These bits of information sometimes sting so hard that we never forget how we developed this piece of “common sense.” (And we rarely forget the “friends” who taught us this lesson first hand.)
Another example I came up with was building common sense through education. As I learned American Sign Language, many of the signs seemed common sense to me and so I’d retain them easily. Same for Japanese grammar. Even math felt like common sense to me. It seemed the more I learned, the more stuff appeared to be common sense.
Here’s what I think it all comes down to: common sense is a combination of what you learn from your environment, family, friends, books, school and all your deductions from this knowledge.
Next time you meet someone who seems to lack what you consider common sense, remember that it’s not a centralized resource pool in which we can all tap.
Just like most anything else in life, it stems from personal experience.
Previously? The Itch.
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