send help: i have no common sense

I’ve always been told I’m a pretty clever person. From a young age I had my head in a book (mainly Harry Potter) and there was actually a point (before my degree) when I considered getting a B as a failure. Yeah, I was that guy.

However, it has occurred to me as I approach my mid-twenties with caution that book smarts may not be all they’re cracked up to be. Perhaps I am an anomaly, but it would seem that being academically clever puts you just out of reach of common sense. I mean, I could hold a conversation about the structure of Milton’s Paradise Lost, but chances are I couldn’t give you a hand with navigating a washing machine. I’m the kind of person that walks into lamp posts on a regular basis.

Sometimes I close the door to the living room, make a few brews, do an elaborate balancing act to get said brews back to the living room to find that I can’t open the door, meaning I have to go back to the kitchen and drop off the delicious cuppas so as to open the bastard living room door, and bring in the brews. As you can see from this insanely exciting example, I make things so much more of a chore for myself just by failing to think through just how easy it could be (is this a shit example?).

It’s an awful predicament really, that I genuinely seem to be without a scrap of common sense. I fight with household items on a daily basis, and I’m pretty sure if the Zombie apocalypse were to arrive I’d be the first to go (and not because I can’t run for shit). The worst part is that I can tell when I’m being idiotic, but that doesn’t mean I am any more likely to do any daily tasks with ease. It’s like watching yourself do something incredibly stupid in slow-mo with no control over what’s happening.

Nowadays, every man and his goldfish has a degree of some kind. Sure, it’s grand to be able to riddle the subtleties of literature, but should it really be the kind of thing we receive qualifications for? I’m starting to think that a course in general survival would have more merit.

For example: I can string together a load of words, and make you think you’re enjoying the reading experience, but when it comes to actually forming any kind of schedule for this blog I’m utterly useless; trying to get the content out there for anyone apart from my mum to read is something I just can’t get the hang of – but that’s maybe ‘cause I’m reluctant to post things on Facebook more than once.

In exchange for some mentoring in the themes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (which by the way is a fucking fantastic read if you get the time to pick it up), would anyone care to give me some life lessons? Or perhaps some mentoring on how to get people to read your blog?

Cheers.

And if you’re wondering why I chose the feature image for this post, I thought he looked like a dog with more common sense than me, watching me struggle with life.