"Stupid is as Stupid Does" and Has Not A lot to Do with Common Sense

Forrest Gump, the main character in the blockbuster movie, “Forest Gump”, was asked several times if he was stupid.

Forrest replied “Stupid is as stupid does”, meaning that a person should be judged by his actions, not his appearance.

If you ever feel stupid, you may like to say to yourself, “I forgive myself, for I didn’t know what I did when I did it, but I do know now.”

Your actions, despite your appearance, are based upon what you were taught and upon what you have tried out for yourself, given your instincts and the knowledge that you have sought out or been exposed to.

Psychology Today says:

Common sense, defined as sound judgment derived from experience rather than study is one of the most revered qualities in America.

The word common, by definition, suggests that common sense is held by a large number of people.

But the idea that if most people think something makes sense then it must be sound judgment has been disproved time and time again.

So many of us are brought up to try to act with high standards or with impeccable behaviour with our language and our thoughts and actions.

We may be told, “think about the starving children”, for example. So because you are lucky that you aren’t starving, and it is awful that some people are hungry, you must appreciate your food and donate to a charity or share with those who don’t have as much.

Common sense, to me, is having a sense of what to do, taken from a common experience.

You may ask is helping starving children common sense?

The answer lies in your mind-set or beliefs and your knowledge and experiences. Common sense is in the mind of the beholder.

If you care about other people in the world, the above may be common sense to you. If you care about your leaders caring about other people, it may be common sense to you that Government organisations help out those who need it.

But what is generally accepted as“common sense?”

The Cambridge dictionary says that it is:

The basic level of practical knowledge and judgment that we all need to help us live in a reasonable and safe way:

· Windsurfing is perfectly safe as long as you have/use some common sense

· a matter of common sense

I went windsurfing when I was in my twenties, with my next-door-neighbour, who loved the outdoors and had technical skills in many outdoor pursuits.

One day we went out on the ocean on a day that was predicted to become stormy. The wind got rough and the wind-surfer capsized.

As my friend tried to rescue the craft, I gallantly paddled water, then using the common sense that I had to float, or better still, swim, I tried a few strokes toward shore.

This didn’t last long until I got tired, whereupon I paddled a bit more, gazing wistfully at my friend and then at the shore, wondering if it was the end for me.

My hardy and wonderful friend, bless her, sizing up the situation with the “common” knowledge that I was a weak swimmer, headed toward me.

She kept me afloat and comforted me, until in a flash, the people who hired out the wind-surfers, arrived in a motorboat, to pick us up.

Some may think it was stupid of us to go out on a stormy day. But my friend knew that rescuers were watching us from shore. She had the common sense, you could say, not to take me out without this back-up. Furthermore, the bad weather wasn’t expected until night-fall.

My windsurfing friend had the knowledge to take the craft out, and she made a judgment call that we would be safe, and we were. The people who hired out the wind-surfers told us not to let capsizing their craft put us off going out again another day.

I had “common sense” at the broadest level defined by the Cambridge dictionary in terms of having the knowledge and judgment to achieve something. I could swim (barely) and I judged that I had to float, not sink.

I could swim because I grew up by a river and in a coastal state, and I wanted to learn to swim. I had the common sense not to go out on the water, without knowing how to float and swim, based upon knowing the dangers of the ocean. At the higher or broader level, my common sense was to preserve myself.

The point here is not to tar people with the “Common Sense” brush.

Think about the put-downs and the nagging comments in your life, such as:

• You should know better

• Don’t you ever learn?

• Why did I do that?

If common sense is having a sense of what to do, taken from a common experience, then let’s make our common experiences inclusive and uplifting.

Common sense can be intuitive, but intuition is generally considered as understanding something without the need for “conscious reasoning.”

For example, we intuitively move toward “individuation” or being all that we can, as a biological process. Research has shown that a baby will intuitively choose a food-stuff that she or he needs.

Having a sense of what to do, taken from a common experience, is not always intuitive, but is context-based, and usually linked to conscious reasoning or thinking.

We all make mistakes.

Stupid is as stupid does when something is done without a person using their common sense (not someone else’s). Or a person thinks they are stupid if they believe that they have not met an expectation, or that they have not taken the “economical” or correct steps needed to produce a desired result.

“Conscience” is generally defined as a person’s moral sense of right and wrong. It is viewed as a guide to one’s behaviour.

“Stupid” is sometimes defined as a lack of intelligence or common sense.

If you are purposely stupid because you don’t care about others or about what you do, then your conscience endangers others.

For most of your life, you may not have been stupid, i.e. lacking intelligence or common sense, but society may have made you feel that you have been.

This may because it doesn’t demonstrate to us that

• we learn from our mistakes

• that each of us has a lot to offer

• that we are interdependent

• it’s okay to ask for help

• helping each other constructively is the fabric of life

• intelligence comes from all of the above, as well as from intrinsic sources

Rather than tell someone to use their common sense, perhaps instead try to find out positively what their knowledge and experiences and skills are, and become their adviser or mentor or friend.

Most of the time, most of us are not purposely “stupid”. If we do fall short of doing something right, it may be because we don’t know better. The more beautiful question now is “why don’t we know better?”

If we don’t know better, this is because we have not learned or been shown something or sought the knowledge to complete something, or experienced something. We need to actively seek information sometimes, in order to meet a goal.

Lacking “common sense” about X, Y or Z doesn’t mean that we are stupid. It means that we don’t share the same experiences as a partition or group of people who have experienced X, Y or Z.

As long as we move toward the best we can be, our “common sense” naturally expands, and that is probably a sense that is common among us all.

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