Epiphanies

In My Humble Opinion
1

Those moments when your brain explodes, a ray of light shines on you from above and suddenly you have new knowledge.

My most profound:

When I was kid I thought everything prior to the 50’s was black and white, everything after that was color. Note that I did not think that film was always black and white before that, I thought the WORLD was black and white.

I had seen a documentary of some sort when I was five. It was showing something from the twenties. Everything was black and white, the picture spun and now it was the same place in the sixties and it was in color.

I thought that at some point in between all of a suddent the world had gone from black and white to color. I spent much time wondering what that must have been like for the people who went through with it.

I saw an episode of Perry Mason where he refers to a redheaded woman. I thought it must have been strange to people during the black-and-white times to have words for color but to not actually have color.

I can still remember when my brain figured it out. I was walking to school in the second grade. Suddenly I just stopped walking and my brain began to put all the pieces together. My friend was actually worried because I had just frozen and was not respoding to him. It was an almost religious experience (but not religious, I have always known there is no god, that wasn’t an epiphany).

What about you? Ever had an intense moment when your brain just clicks?

2

My earliest, and therefore one of my biggest, was when the concept of subtraction clicked, back in first grade. I can recall it vivdly.

But I still suck at math.

3

In this thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=43332

My answer was:

4

Obfus: There was a Calvin & Hobbes strip with that theme–Calvin asked his dad about b&w photos, and that was his dad’s cop-out answer. :smiley:

5

Hmmmm…further proof that I am Calvin.

6

I was in fourth grade when I first realized that I was a little different. We were having a class party of some sort that included breaking a pinata. When the pinata was opened all the other kids dove for the candy. I remained standing. There was simply no way I would ever have been caught scrabbling about on the floor like that. It was undignified and embarrassing. And I was desperately wishing that I could join in. I happened to glance at my teacher, who was watching me with a look of obvious pity. I understood then that I had, for one reason or another, grown up too fast. I also understood that I would have given just about anything to have been as mindless and carefree as my classmates.

On a more cheerful note, I was privileged to witness an epiphany of one of my children. I was driving to the store with my oldest, who had just turned two. We were living in an area that attracted a lot of “leaf-peepers” so there were tour buses everywhere. My daughter was chattering to herself. A couple buses went past. She was quiet for a bit, and then said, very thoughtfully, “one bus…two buses…” Plural nouns; how cool!

7

I remember the first time I made out in a car, looked up and noticed that the windows really WERE fogged up! I had always thought that the phrase “fog up the windows” was metaphorical, designed to portray making out in cars as being extra dirty or something.

8

I had always thought the ancients must have been realy imaginative to have thought up all those constellations. Except for a few obvious ones (Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big and Little Dippers), none of those listed on star maps seemed close to anything I saw in the night sky. Then one night when I was camping far from city lights I looked up into the sky, and wow! my mind couldn’t help but find shapes and patterns among the stars.

Most folks don’t realize how much street and building lights detract from a pristine view of the heavens. It’s not just the big cities that have this problem, either. You really have to be in the deep country to see the same night sky that people used to see in centuries past.

[sub]And yes, I know the Dippers are properly asterisms, not constellations[/sub]

9

I remember talking with my sister about how horrible I’d been feeling, and how this has been going off and on for years. Then my sister started asking me questions about how I felt during these times and what I was doing differently and if my behavior changed. I suddenly realized she was describing exactly what had been happening to me over the years as if she’d been there the whole time. When she told me I had the symptoms of depression, the feelings of relief that washed over me were tremendous. Suddenly, it seemed as if my whole life could change - this wasn’t just me and my problem anymore, it was something that could be treated by a doctor, it was something that could be stopped. The unexpescted realization and the subsequent relief that there was an end in sight was so great, I almost started crying on the spot.

The other epiphany I had was when I gave up drugs and drinking. I went home from work one day after working a double shift and I was starving. I opened the fridge to find a case of beer, some sodas, and what little food there was in there was too old to eat. I found my bread molded. Then I saw the bottles of Absolut, Captain Morgan’s, Cuervo Gold, Bailey’s Irish Cream, and various other liquors. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t bought any food in a week, but had stocked up on all the liquor I could drink. That thought was followed by the realization that I buy a lot of liquor. That thought reminded me that I also always had pot in the place. I had no food to eat, but I was never without pot or alcohol.

I checked myself into rehab the next day.

10

Funny this thread pops up now. I had an epiphany on Monday regarding my ex-boyfriend and my relationship. Long story short, I realised I had been wrong, too.

In other news, I went to high school with the daughter of the owner of Bruegger’s Bagels, last name Brue. I didn’t know this when I met her, as she doesn’t have that effected rich girl attuitude. She was a casual friend at that point, as we were in a play together. So she invited me to her house for her birthday party, and when she opened her fridge, she had ALL the flavors of cream cheese I could imagine. Wierd. Then her mom asked if I wanted a bagel. It was like 9 o’clock at night! Suddently, I put two and fourteen together (she had always brought bagels to rehersal, etc…) and realised that BRUE and BRUEGGER’S were decidedly similar. She went on to be a really close friend of mine. (not because of the bagels…)

11

In grade school, in math class, we were taught several times about what an amazing invention “zero” was. This was usually brought up when we were learning Roman numerals. This confounded me every year. Was it possible that an entire civilization didn’t understand what zero was? If there were 5 oranges, and 5 Roman centurions each ate 1 orange, were they amazed and confused when a sixth centurion showed up and asked for an orange? “By Jove, Maximus, we had 5 oranges, and now we have … well, I don’t know what we have. I’m at a loss to explain what just happened here!”

About a year ago, (I’m 29 now) this popped into my head for some reason, and it hit me like a ton of bricks (or oranges) that back in math class, “zero” didn’t mean “none,” it meant “place-holder.” I was so excited I called one of my friends to tell her. There was a lot of silence on the other end of the phone.

After watching old silent films, I once asked my dad why everyone back in old-fashioned times ran around with such jerky movements, and if it was hard to learn to move that way. He explained, so it wasn’t an epiphany, just a dumb question.

12

But of course that would not be a bad reason to be friends with someone, SwimmingRiddles.

Mmmm…bagels. Now I have to run over to Boogie Woogie Bagel Boys in the hopes that they will have some fresh asiago bagels.

13

When I was in grade 2, or 3, not sure, my class went to a community theater performance of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. This company specialized in acting out children’s stories, and as such, audience participation was encouraged. There was a scene where the cloth-weaving con-artists had hidden money in the loom, and the king’s courtier was alone in the workshop for whatever reason. We were all hollering “It’s in the loom!! The gold is in the loom!!!” when suddenly I stopped yelling me as a wave of comprehension crested and broke in my head. I thought, “If he finds the gold, the show is over. It has to play out the way it was written, so there’s no use us telling him where the gold is.” Eureka!

14

I was about 10 or 11 and standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the family room when it suddenly struck me… Santa Claus was real, not as a person but as a concept; i.e. the spirit of giving and happiness and such around Christmastime. I went around telling this to all my younger brothers and sister, but as I recall they weren’t too choked up over it. After all, it was my epiphany, not theirs.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way… :wink:

15

My only feeling of epiphany was when someone told me (the cliche) that there are really 3 sexes. Male, female, and beautiful women. Suddenly a lot became clearer. I knew why I was attracted to the latter, and why they didn’t respond to me like other women.

In the years since then I’m not so sure, but at the time it was the Voice of Wisdom waking me from the muddled nap of my dating life.

16

I’d chalk up the day that I realized there is no such thing as a circle.

Think about it. A circle requires perfection. Otherwise it’s some sort of oval. But perfection simply doesn’t occur in this weary world of ours. Therefore: no circles. Ever.

I was 11 I think and I got so excited I called my dad at work. He congratulated me on the thought and probably reassured himself that at least I was a true math geek and not some sort of poser.

17

The two most recent that occurred in my life:
[ul]
[li]Reading the second paragraph in the Declaration of Independence as an adult (not as a grade school aged child) and realizing that we *don’t have to put up with this crap, contrary to popular belief.[/li]
[]The moment I understood the libertarian philosophy.[/ul]

18

It had to be when I figured out that most people are confused about how emotions like love, hate and indifference are ordered. Love and hate are really closely related, and indifference is the exact opposite of both of them. Hate is only focusing on someone totally with negativity, love is the same except with positivity. Hating someone can only happen when you’ve loved them, and hating someone is completely pointless because what emotion you really should have for them if you don’t wish to love them is indifference. What good does it do to save up all your love because you hate someone?

19

Probably my first jolt toward adulthood. I was in grade school (early 60’s). Shy, bookish, tractable kid; polite to adults and respectful of authority. Y’know–a dweeb.

We got the question/answer portion of kiddie American history about the Civil War. I’d read the textbook, which tried to explain slavery in simple words. It said that though some slaves were treated badly, many were contented overall.

It was an internal earthquake. I could’t understand people owning other people. So I questioned the teacher.

Bad move–and very atypical of me. She insisted that the book was right. But the idea of owning people shook me so much I kept asking naive questions.

Let’s just say she got angry and sent A Note home to my parents. But that was the first time the comfy sureties of childhood cracked. Blinding–and scary–light. First time I realized what the fairy tale about the Emperor’s new clothes meant–and that it wasn’t a fairy tale.

Veb

20

Mine’s kinda dorky. And it’s long. But I figured, what the hell?

I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 9 years old. I went to college and majored in it, despite all the warnings and cautions of “why don’t you choose a real major that you can use when you graduate?” because it was what I wanted to do. So I did.

The summer between my junior and senior years, I did my field study in archaeology. We were at a prehistoric site in a river valley in Massachusetts. This was the first time most of us (there were 10 of us in the major, really tight, close knit group) had been on a dig before, and we had a blast. There’s nothing like working in concert with the people you’ve studied with, learned with, played with and cried with. God, I miss that crew.

Anyway. I found a bunch of stuff, nothing of major earthshattering importance, but to an archaeologist it was cool. Then I hit a dry spell. After about a week of digging in the heat, mosquitos, and poison ivy, I was getting disillusioned. Then I turned over a trowel full of soil and saw this cool flash. Quartz crystal. Not uncommon in New England, but this was in the B zone soil, which is unplowed and is where you find most cultural artifacts. So I pull this piece of quartz out.

When I picked it up and dusted it off (“field cleaning” usually consists of spitting on said artifact…), I saw a perfectly formed quartz crystal. One end was terminated, meaning it formed a point characteristic of a crystal. The other end had broken off, and was worn smooth. The faces of the crystals were also smoothed. I figured it was just a crystal, nothing special. I showed it to my advisor (who was more our guru than professor) and he paused. He pointed out the worn areas, and told me that they were caused by handling or “bag wear”, worn by constant abrasion in a pouch or the like, and that stones/crystals like these were often carried, most likely to bring good luck or ward off sickness or evil. (Obviously, all assumptions as there’s no concrete evidence of such intangible things.)

When he handed that crystal back to me, I was floored. In archaeology, you find a lot of nondescript stone tools and rocks and stuff. They’re important for learning about what people were doing, but it’s hard to put make the connection between these things and the people that used them, which is the point of archaeology. What I held in my hand, someone 6,000 years ago had also held. This person kept this rock because they thought it was beautiful. They kept it because they maybe thought it would bring them luck. In a flash, in that one moment, I had my “moment of clarity” where it all clicked, and I realized that this WAS what I wanted to do. This was it. I had found the human connection, the “big picture” that all archaeologists talk about, but many can’t seem to find.

It still gives me chills thinking about that. I do archaeology on weekends now when I can, but not for a livelihood. I still carry that with me though, and will never forget that moment.