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Common sense
There was a time, long, long ago when we knew the term “It’s Common Sense.” It was the kind of thing that, when your mother said, “Do not ever put your tongue on anything metal when the temperature is below zero,” you just had to try it. I contemplated this while my tongue was stuck to our cast iron well pump, shouting “Hep me, hep me.” And that is how I learned the value of common sense.
If you have common sense, you probably don’t need the Wikipedia description, so you can skip the next paragraph. Because Wiki is like Webster’s dictionary—by describing something in technical detail, you strip it of its actual meaning.
For those of you who don’t have common sense, learn from Wiki: Common sense is “knowledge, judgement, and taste which is more or less universal and which is held more or less without reflection or argument. As such, it is often considered to represent the basic level of sound practical judgment or knowledge of basic facts that any adult human being ought to possess. It is ‘common’ in the sense of being shared by nearly all people.”
I find it kind of strange that Wiki is describing something which should be inherent—i.e. common—to nearly all people. Those people already get it, and those who don’t have common sense would have tired out halfway through the description of something they don’t have, and would have gone back to binge-watching every episode of Big Bang Theory.
COMMON SENSE – WHERE ART THOU?
Those of us who have common sense—like me, who now unplugs the toaster before I shove a knife in to get the toast out—have learned the hard way that common sense does not come naturally. Most of us learned by 1) not listening to our mothers, who learned it the hard way and desperately tried to pass that on, and 2) did something really stupid and, finding ourselves still alive after that, made a mental note never to do that again.
So common sense is not something we are born with. Learning it is important, through ignoring your mothers and a lifetime of doing stupid things.
Still, it is a valuable life tool. If you’ve ever said, “Hmmm, this is a bad idea”—it is. That’s because common sense is talking to you, as you picture yourself falling off a roof while cleaning an eavestrough. If you are reading this, you are probably alive, which means you have some degree of common sense.
TROUBLE WITH ‘COMMON’
It used to be we all knew what was going on. Things get broken, we fix it. If your toilet does not flush, it calls for your attention. You will go to Dollarama, buy a plunger that has a lifetime of five uses, and plunge the hell out of it until your arms hurt. If you don’t, you may find you flush and everything you’ve ever done is now laid out on your floor. This is not good, and often results in divorce, so common sense says: Deal with this now. Plumbers are expensive, but so is divorce.
Those of us who have common sense have learned it. Trouble is, not everyone has learned it. That’s why our world goes crazy, when we watch people falling for telephone and Internet fraud.
I get phony email bills from Bell Canada sent from—no kidding—DaveG@gmail.com. The Sense tells me Bell would not send me “Pay $850 or your account will be terminated.” Sorry DaveG@gmail. Bell owns me, and would not send me a demand via email. And why would a giant communication provider use gmail for its messages? Still, people fall for this.
Common sense gives us a great gift: Is this too good to be true? That’s the Sense checking in.
COMMON SENSE VS. CONSPIRACY THEORY
In a modern development, which proves that reason tends to fail over time, everyone has a conspiracy theory. I won’t go into “illegal immigrants are eating our cats and dogs”, though that’s a beauty.
A buddy of mine stopped using his Air Miles card at the LCBO, because he thought the government was tracking his alcohol consumption. I considered him my intellectual equal, so I asked him two things: “Why in hell would the government monitor your booze intake, and why would your booze intake be of interest to them?”
Thinking this way is a destructive force. I have no idea why “The government is out to get you” is even a thing. Evidence says government is working on a pantload of other things, and has little time to target individual Canadians. Except for Revenue Canada. They’re spooky. And they have computers that randomly target individual citizens for random acts of torment.
Other than that, most conspiracy theories are BS, fuelled by Internet reports of outrageous activity, posted by a 16-year-old on his bedroom computer in his mom’s house.
READING IS NOT BELIEVING
Common sense says: “Yeah … I don’t think that’s right.” Yet tons of people believe in UFOs, that the world will end at whatever date they have chosen, but soon for sure; that all government people are actually aliens, sent to destroy us; that the antichrist is now on earth; that the Second Coming is coming shortly, and all the “good people” will be transported to heaven … the list goes on. And they’re all waiting to say, “I told you so!” when it happens.
Why do people want to believe so desperately that they discard common sense and dive down a rabbit hole of a belief system which has no validity? Because they read it and hear it and say, “That makes sense!” Abandoning common sense for a new love— something they can explore, based on the germ of a theory.
I have seen this happen to ordinarily reasonable people, and I know why.
BELIEF SYSTEMS
When you hear something marginally believable, you go “Hmm”. Then you look a little more, and you go “Huh”. Then you explore, and you are on the path to being “enlightened”. Then you say “Yes” and you are all in. Everything you see, read and hear backs up your previous journey.
Trouble is, once you only see the world through your new tainted glasses, everything you see confirms your belief. If you’re an “alien” guy, the government and everyone you see around you might be an alien. If you think the government is out to get you, you will see it everywhere. This is not a good way to live, because ignoring common sense is not the right thing to do.
Ludicrous theories abound. They trap us. The only way they survive is because we abandon common sense, and lose ourselves in other worlds. “What if …” trumps “What is.” Fall into the trap and there’s no way back.
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