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.
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.
That big fireworks from far away could somehow land on my family’s car and burn us to death. Brought to me by my older sister trying to scare me at the age of 7 🙃
That the moon was moving and following us when we were driving.
That going to the bathroom at a neighbour’s house was rude and that I had to hold it in until we got home. I vividly remember this one time I was sitting on my mum’s lap. She talked for hours and I couldn’t hold it anymore, but I also was embarrassed to tell her I needed to go home, so I ended up urinating on myself. I still didn’t tell anyone until my mum felt her legs warm and wet. I still hate using any toilet that isn’t mine but I at least do what I need to do now.
I believed that there were very tiny human workers in my body that made it run.
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 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.
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)
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We do.
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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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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
Until I was about 5, I believed all dogs were boys and all cats were girls.
That was a lie propagated by parrots.
That adults were intelligent
That the future would be better.
A shame to admit this, but I believed in God until I was 12.
“Benny Hill owns Thames TV, he named it after his Thames van” (pronounced to rhyme with “frames”).
That brain surgeons must make like $20 an hour, since that seemed like a huge amount of money to me. Even though that equates to around $80 today, I was a bit off, since even one that made a relatively modest $700k a year would be making roughly $350 hourly.
