Common sense is like X-ray vision.
Saying you have it gets you stabbed by people you wanted to have sex with.
The great thing about common sense, I think, is how rare people are who’ve got any of it. Which the Pokemon card collectors out there can appreciate, I think. The signature attack of a first edition holo Charizard was “Reasonable Rebuttal,” after all.
Which leads me to a suggestion: why don’t those of us who’ve got any of it stop referring to it as “common”? Just leads to an argument anyway.
About common sense, I mean. Not Pokemon cards. Although I’ve had plenty of arguments about common Pokemon cards in my day, let me tell you that for nothing.
The fact of the matter is nobody that I’ve ever encountered can agree what sort of sense ought to be called “common.” Which sounds a little absurd to me, if I’m honest. I mean, if it is common sense — and I ought to know, because I’ve got common sense coming out me ears — then everyone ought to agree with me about it. Stands to reason. If it’s common, then people should just agree out of some intuitive natural order, rather than what happens which is people disagreeing and demonstrating that they are, in fact, insane.
Sort of makes me wonder: if we can’t even agree what sort of sense is common, then how come we haven’t identified “common sense” as the myth it so clearly is?
I think this is the source of a lot of disagreement. When two people who take for granted the inviolability of positions that they hold, positions which a bystander might point out appear to be diametrically opposed, then no wonder people can’t agree on simple things. We all know these arguments. Coke versus Pepsi. Football versus Football. Dem versus dom. They’re the old stories. I don’t need to outline all of them.
I mean, you can just logically prove that calling it common sense is misleading with a simple test. If I say, “This is just common sense,” and you disagree, then that means it’s sense that we don’t have in common, therefore it’s uncommon sense, therefore it’s not common sense.
Just stands to reason. Can’t see how anyone could disagree with that.
So I’ve got an idea about this myth since it keeps causing so many problems. Something that might help with all the fights.
Those of us who’ve GOT it should stop spending so much energy trying to convince all those pretenders who also claim to have any, but clearly don’t, that we’re the ones with common sense. If it has any integrity in itself then it doesn’t need to be proved anyway.
Let me ask: What have we wise people with common sense accomplished by calling our sense “common,” eh? We’ve been misleading is all. That’s what.
I don’t see any value in continuing the charade of calling it “common” sense.
I say we start calling it like it is, we who’ve got your actual “common” sense.
Because common sense, as I’ve pointed out, isn’t common.
“Common” sense is actually more like a superpower.
And when you’ve got a superpower, you don’t run around showing that shit off. I mean, you can, but then people will become envious of you and shun you. Just ask Al Simmons.
So here’s an idea for those of you who have got this superpower of not-so-common “common” sense.
Forget about common sense. It’s not a real thing anyway, so just forget that you ever even heard about it. Erase it from your personality. Make it a taboo, and purge it from your conscience. There’s no such sense as common sense, so it shouldn’t be too hard.
We should all still use our superpower that until recently we referred to as common sense, but forget about calling it that. Forget about calling it anything. It’s our superpower, and, as such, it is something from which we can derive secret confidence.
It’s just like x-ray vision. Keep it to ourselves. You can’t count how many benefits you get from using it. Talking about it, though, that just makes people a little bit stabby.
