I once actually thought that when movies and shows were developing, I thought that they were being made within the year of their release date. I didn’t know that these projects were sometimes done in advance or took years to make.
That when ‘Commercial Breaks’ happened during shows, I thought they meant that the actors needed a break before resuming. Not realizing that episodes are already made and commercials just interrupt things to just sell you shit.
When I learned food and drinks were energy for your body, I actually thought that when I got sleepy or tired, I just needed to drink or eat something. Not realizing that it wouldn’t have mattered.
I thought credit/debit cards had infinite money. Not sure how that idea didn’t lead to me doing incredibly stupid things.
I somehow also thought my parents got groceries for free because I didn’t see them giving physical paper money to the cashier. Or I confusingly also thought they were stealing or something, and the cashier just let them.
That adults were intelligent
That the future would be better.
I lived in the greatest country in the world and everyone was so jealous of us.
Well that was true for some of us in the past…
Justice, mercy, duty, that sort of thing.
One of those things is not like the others.
Its a line that death says in the Discworld book The Hogfather
All right," said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY
I miss Terry.
I believed that one day I would find myself in a situation where I would have to save myself or a friend from being buried in quicksand.
Until I was about 5, I believed all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.
I just posted the same!
That was a lie propagated by parrots.
A shame to admit this, but I believed in God until I was 12.
When I was upset about what I saw all around me, I was told that animals don’t suffer like we do. They aren’t conscious like we are. I knew better, but when everyone is acting as if something is true, you can kind of get drawn up in it, and I guess I believed it for a while. It was a helpful belief to have.
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When I was a kid my parents would show me the NORAD Santa Tracker on Christmas eve, and of course had to explain to me that NORAD tracks everything larger than a baseball in the sky so of course they would track Santa’s movements. This easily added a couple of years onto how long I believed in Santa because why the heck would NORAD have a Santa tracker if it wasn’t real? The federal government doesn’t do whimsy like that!
I think it was the fact that the little animations never changed from year to year that finally allowed me to drop that line of reasoning…
i read about black holes in an encyclopedia and how nothing can escape from them when getting too close and thought that they’re a real threat to me in daily life. i’d look around when i was outside making sure that i’m not getting close to any so that i don’t get sucked in. i must have been very good at avoiding them since i never saw one.
the same encyclopedia had a part about human reproduction and showed an illustration of sexual penetration. i thought it looked uncomfortable and wondered why anyone would want to do any of that, and seeing how many people have kids i came to a conclusion that people do it because it’s mandatory and you are required to do it. i was very much not looking forward to the day it’s my turn to have sex, until i realized that you simply just don’t have to.
in kindergarten my mom was talking with the caretaker about a “life-booster” that “wakes her right up”. i interpreted it as it making her wake up because she’s terrified by it. for a week i was living in dread, thinking that this “life-booster” was some kind of malevolent entity that wants to kill me, who might be nearby and watching me. i imagined it as some kind of evil goblin and i checked my room thoroughly every evening to make sure he’s not hiding anywhere so that i’ll survive the night. after a week i realized that they were talking about coffee and that’s the thing that people drink to be more awake and that it makes no sense that there’d be a monster out there that’s looking specifically for me.
We lived by a tiny sea bay, I thought that the place on the other side (despite having been there!) of the water was Sweden.
I saw a commercial in the 70’s for Starburst. All of them were the same pattern: Person pops candy into their mouth, next scene is them taking off hang-gliding.
I thought if I ate a Starburst I’d get sent flying off a mountain like the hang gliders. Not in a fun way… eat this candy and you’re getting flung to your death off the top of a mountain. (I didn’t understand what a hang glider was either)
I believed dogs were all boys and cats were all girls.
When I was a kid I’d get a new stuffed animal, and somewhere on the tag it would say, “Made from all new material”.
And for some reason I thought that meant the material had just been developed or discovered. Like they had a team of scientists in a lab working on a new type of polyester just so they could use it to make this shitty stuffed lemon that I won at a church carnival.
Thirty years later I realized it probably just meant the materials weren’t recycled.
