Where Did Common Sense Go?

Have you ever asked yourself lately, “Why are there so many dumb people doing so many dumb things?”

I get why some dumb things get done. Accidents happen. What I don’t get is deliberates (the opposite-LOL). This is where logic and common sense go their separate ways, and people deliberately foul up some system. It’s as if they are inside their own bubble and have no perception of their actions on others.

For instance, logic tells us an object will fall. Common sense says not to put something underneath that falling object. Stupidity takes over, and things are under things known to fall, thereby damaging people or property. The ridiculousness is profound.

Let me tell you of one such occasion. It’s not about a falling object. The subject is benign. No one in the story gets injured (or wet).

Those who spend time with me know I always have music playing near me. Sometimes it’s coming from my phone, headphones, or a Bluetooth speaker. I listen to every kind of music – classical, rock, pop, stage, country – everything!

Yesterday, I had music coming from my pocket, from my compact radio.

The video I made below is based on a question I was asked in the street. It was a brief (and funny) encounter with a stranger, so I thought I’d re-enact it so you can share in the humour.

Maybe I’m getting old, cynical and a bit grumpy. Perhaps I’ve become my father. He was short-fused with people and what he thought were their moronic questions.

He once dumped his disdain my way for asking a simple question about a device he used to use.

Dad had a thing called a “slide rule”. I have no clue about how to use a slide rule, but I come from the next generation that never needed them. When I asked him how he used this unknown tool, he thought the question was stupid. He looked at me in dismay and asked, “What the hell do they teach you in school?”

Clearly, not slide rules, daddio!

I’m older now, and younger people ask me similar questions. Like my father, I’ve forgotten that radios aren’t so common anymore. To young people, music comes from other tech. To them, a radio is actually a radio app, not an object of its own!

Of course, it isn’t strange or funny if you’ve lived a little and seen both time periods, both technologies in operation.

Knowing what a radio does seems so ridiculously obvious, right? From my side, it’s laughable. From their side, it’s foreign.

But here’s the scary thing.

Like the slide rules of my dad’s day, radios are headed for the history books. Humorous anecdotes like these won’t make sense or get likes in the future. Pocket radio humour is a gift for today, for this moment, for those people who know and have used them.

Titters and giggles about phones and radios will soon fade from consciousness. My generation will exit this world with its tech, as the next enters with theirs. Given enough time, that generation will exit too, and the phone will be long forgotten by the next generations. They’ll look back at both devices with a steely blank look of indifference, unable to figure out what was once obviously obvious to those who once used them.

Today, all I offer is a post about common sense and a tenuous link to old and new tech in a single post. I’m using it to appeal to an older generation (mine), and have seen the next generation use their technology in dangerous and foolish ways!

–Michael (Dark fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)

Linda J Bettenay, author of ‘Secrets Mothers Keep’ and ‘Wishes For Starlight’