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0 pointsTeMPOraL1y ago0 comments

> I'm frequently surprised by the amount of seemingly ordinary skills I picked up as a bored child that other people didn't. This was an obvious way to solve those "spot the difference" pictures in magazines.

Conversely, I'm amazed by the amount of things I discover as an adult are not common experiences or skills for people, despite being considered as such. This includes, for example, having an inner voice (which I do), or ability to visualize things in your head (which I don't).

Wrt. the latter, when I learned as an adult that some people actually can conjure up images in their mind on demand[0], and conversely that aphantasia is a thing, it took me few more years to connect that back to some early experiences in childhood - being bored out of my mind by some well-known novels that my parents and teachers found particularly engaging. Specifically, the ones rich in descriptions of scenery. They'd say that's the best part, what makes the story rich and immersive, and that's what imagination is for and those books are good for exercising it. Meanwhile, I'd feel ashamed and wonder what the fuck are they talking about, while skimming to find where the descriptions end so I can resume reading from there. Well, it turns out what they said was true for them, but is not true for people like me, who can't visualize to save their life.

Well, except in dreams. Which makes the whole thing even more fascinating.

> Some recent example of things I shared:

Interesting. I somehow managed to never learn either, so thanks! Ironically, I realize now I've probably seen people do the jacket swing trick hundreds of times, and yet it never registered in my mind as a distinct technique, much less one that I could learn.

EDIT:

One such skill I didn't pick up until my wife taught me, and that I know many (most?) people don't know, is how to correctly pour liquids out of rectangular containers with off-centre openings. Think a milk box, or 5L jug, or fuel canister. Turns out, you shouldn't flip them to give the liquid the shortest path to destination, but the opposite - have it flow alongside the entire top edge of the container. This gives you steadier flow, and you'll spill less. I still find it counterintuitive, but it works.

[0] - Fun fact: that makes "undressing someone with your eyes" a literal ability for them too.

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rmellow1y ago

> Specifically, the ones rich in descriptions of scenery. (...) skimming to find where the descriptions end so I can resume reading from there.

I've always been good at conjuring images in my mind, but I also skip the drawn out visual descriptions.

I could never enjoy Lord of the Rings due to Tolkien's love of describing trees (of the wooden and familial kinds)

v-erne1y ago

>> Well, it turns out what they said was true for them, but is not true for people like me, who can't visualize to save their life.

I used to be exactly like this - I could not visualize anything. Which was very perplexing for young me - I was astonishingly good at math (winning some country level math competitions even) but could not get past some arbitrary but somehow low level geometry problems. Then it struck me - I could not see the solutions in my head, only on paper, which drastically limited my search space.

But latley after years od doing other thing (including more artsy stuff like drawing) I discovered that I was wrong - its it possible to learn, its just that some people gets this faster and with little effort. For me it was just a other few thousend hours of doing staff that accidentally expanded my visualization ability and then "miracle" happend.

The same was with my supposed tone deafness - guess what, I only believed my self info being tone deaf (real tone deafness is very bery rare). I just was lazy in this departament (in building my ability to perceive tones).

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