Submitted by rattledlove1139 in Ability

Just thoughts

Ever since I was kid people say stuff is common sense, obvious. But what about when it's not? Red means it's hot and not to touch (until it doesn't, because it's clothes) and you shouldn't put things in your mouth (until you should, because it's food) and people don't like yelling noises (until they do, because it's cheering)

Rules have exceptions and people say well common sense to know those. But seeing a red coat different from seeing a red stove element, one you are supposed to put on your body and one you're not supposed to touch.
If you learn rule "red is not to touch" that makes you not want to wear the red coat. Then you get in trouble trying to go outside in winter underdressed. Or you wear the red coat and now don't understand why you can't touch the red stove element, because you touched that other red thing fine. Then you get burned because no one explained they just assumed they said enough already.

So when people say stuff is common sense and get angry I think what that means is decide not worth teaching or being around people not able to understand. I don't learn things like others sometimes I can't remember even if you say 50 times and sometimes I remember half right half wrong.
In childhood I would stick hands in other kids clothes because no one explained I can't just do what i feel like to other people, that makes them upset and that's mean. I started to understand I got in trouble if i did it but never understood why, and if I did it quiet enough I wouldn't get in trouble. People assuming this common sense doesn't need explaining means I learned very wrong lesson.

I don't have an easy time with people because they don't want to make it easy. They like to tell me everything I do wrong even if it doesn't hurt, if I look weird or like freak or worse words. Sometimes meet someone who give chance then take back and walk away because I prove self too stupid. People don't believe I'm adult because I can't act like normal one. I've got restrained and hurt.
As kid and as adult I can't fight back or say anything because then I'm in trouble. I didn't start it and i can't end it.

I try really hard learning things and being nice. But I can't always get it right even obvious or common sense things. And then almost all people just give up because they don't want to try explaining or they think not remembering means I don't actually care or that I try manipulate them when i explain???
Sometimes wish could be in world of only people like me it'd still be hard but we'd be nice to each other and understand that we can't always understand

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ratratratrat wrote

i can relate a lot, people think that i don’t need things bc i am ‘too old’, like an accommodation in my school i was told at 14 ‘you’re too old for that’ but managed to keep it, and now they are trying to get rid of it again with the same argument and i managed to keep it again because the teacher ‘was tired of arguing’ with me. people get so angry when you need extra help or they don’t think you ‘really deserve it’.

it is the same with college, i have said since 9th grade “I’m not going to college” but the same counselors and teachers will say that things will change about my accommodations “when I go to college” even though they have heard for 4 years I am not going. Everything I do that goes against their idea of what I should be like, they say “you have to live in the real world” or “you need to have the purse strings cut on you” or “don’t make your mum take care of you for the rest of her life”. how mean is that to say to someone for just not wanting to go to college??? i wish we could live in a world where people were not judged for acting ‘too young’ or ‘too old’ and i hope you find people that support you and let you be your real self :)

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Tequila_Wolf wrote

Common sense is just shared prejudice.

That slavery was natural and just has been common sense in many parts of the world through history.

Common sense includes things like the idea that we are individual subjects who apprehend objects, rather than multiplicities who are constituted as subjects in our apprehension of objects.

It's not always easy navigating the shared prejudices of the societies we live in. But it's something we generally have to try to do anyway.

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rattledlove1139 OP wrote

Sorry i don't understand what you mean

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kore wrote

Might be interpreting Tequila wrong here but

we are individual subjects who apprehend objects

this is the idea that everyone has a sort of "soul" or "self" that transcends physical existence. Not sure what your background is but e.g. in Christianity the idea that one has a soul that inhabits an earthly body but will go to heaven after death, yet still be the same "soul".

multiplicities who are constituted as subjects in our apprehension of objects

is more the idea that "you" arise from the environment, that your subjective experience, your "mind" really just seems like a "separate individual" because of things like how our biological functions work (e.g. I can will my arm to move, but I can't will someone else's arm to move. Thus I think I am somehow separate from that other person. It hurts me to touch a red-hot electric stove coil, but it doesn't hurt me to put a pot on a stove coil. So I think that me and the pot are "separate" objects) Also involved of course is the way we've been raised and how society is structured (e.g. capitalist individualism)

hope that makes sense.

In regards to your OP, I totally hear you. I had some experiences recently that made perceive the world quite differently and I realized that things that seem totally obvious to some people are really just things that other people are good at accepting easily. (Tequila's "shared prejudice"). Or like you say, they are just good at figuring out when exceptions apply and when they don't.

I'd go so far as to say that people not understanding why things are the way they are is really just because they're perceiving the world differently, not because they're not smart or whatever.

I'm really glad you posted this. It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently. Please feel free to add to the discussion in whatever way you want.

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MountainMan wrote (edited )

Instructions for microwave-oven meals are what gets me. They're never specific enough. "Microwave on high for 2-3 minutes" is not specific enough. It's not any easier when your heads all swirly from forgetting to eat.

Had a Hungry Man meal the other day, and as far as I can tell, the instructions want you to skillfully carve out a section of the plastic covering to uncover the brownie, which a lot of people would get hurt doing. I know damn well they didn't design it that way, I'm just not getting it, but no one is willing to help me with this simple issue. They make fun of how simple it is and how ridiculous it is that I can't get it right. Makes me want to say fuck the brownie.

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