Common sense is the most important thing that most people lack nowadays. Gertrude Stein’s quote “Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense” conveys a deeper meaning that has taught me how to obtain information in this world without losing common sense. With common sense, tasks are completed without hesitation, and situations are resolved with simple solutions that require just the knowledge in someone’s brain. In this 21st century, technology surrounds everyone in everyday life.
There is so much information around us that people can lose their ability to think for themselves. Living life like it was centuries ago is how we can restore our common sense. In communities where people rely more on practical experience than technology, they may develop stronger everyday problem-solving skills. It is not necessarily that they aren’t successful, but that their daily experiences require them to use their own skills. Moreover, spending our time doing things that strengthen our minds is how we can keep our common sense.
Countries like Afghanistan are hundreds of years behind. Technology is not something that completely encompasses everyday life. Someone may say that their simpler lifestyle is what makes them unsuccessful, but I say it is what sets them apart from everyone else and allows them to think for themselves. The purpose of this life is not supposed to fill our minds with stress. Stress is what hinders our common sense. A simple life, like being a shopkeeper in the middle of two mountains in Afghanistan, is what can build our intellect.
Countries like America and China have technology running the streets. Technology takes over many people’s jobs, preventing them from obtaining common knowledge, but the information that replaces them is what the real issue is. Too much information is in this world that is created to fill the young generations’ minds. Smartphones and social media are the youth’s first worry instead of figuring out how to solve their day-to-day problems. Lacking the ability to solve our own problems and relying on artificial intelligence stops our brains from thinking. Frequent notifications take control over people’s lives and prevent them from making silent reflections and critical thinking.
The solution to common sense is not to avoid information that the world throws, but to use it to strengthen our minds instead of allowing it to take over. People can spend their lives trying to solve world hunger, but the information that they comprehend may prevent them from taking time to work on themselves. After all, sitting alone reflecting is the most impactful way that I see to boost our common sense.
Living the same life every day with one mission rather than living a life with several makes achieving common sense possible. People think too deeply about the world. There is truly one mission in this world, not multiple. Information in this world misleads people from tackling their one mission, and lures them into taking a load that is impossible to voyage. That one mission is ultimately what makes everyone special. Avoiding it is like discovering a treasure chest and walking right over it.
Stein’s quote does not tell us that we can’t gain common sense, but it guides us on how we should comprehend information. It shows us how the world is frequently evolving, and there is newer information every day. All in all, common sense is supposed to be common, but it has become a rare sense instead. It is a rare sense that can save us from corruption. We must be able to acknowledge the information that can stray us away from our own selves.
The information is not even the problem; it’s what people who obtain it do that makes common sense rare. What the rare sense has taught me in life is that it is not what we learn from all this information that can make us successful.
It is what we learn from ourselves.
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