View from the North40: Quirks aren't what they used to be

We all have our little quirks, right. They’re nothing to be ashamed of because they are, in fact, one of the components of what makes each of us unique — quite probably weird, too — but unique for sure.

In her Aug. 26, 2020, Pyschology Today article about quirks Sheila Robinson-Kiss says one of the keys to good mental health is recognizing that just because a behavior seems outside the norm, doesn’t make it bad. If it’s not hurting anybody, we should just figure out a way to honor the quirkiness.

For example my husband, who is a great guy and lets me throw him under the bus on occasion in my column, has some food issues. He comes from a family of finicky eaters, and though he does pretty good, every once in a while we just have to acknowledge he has a “thing” going on and let it go.

We have been embroiled this week in a blueberry issue. Yes, blueberries, like those we eat almost every day — but not quitethe same berries.

I was digging in the freezer this week and found a package of frozen homegrown blueberries given to us by a family member, I thought he’d be thrilled for something other than store bought frozen blueberries.

No.

Because the berries were stuck together, I thawed them. This was bad.

Thawed berries don’t work with his system of making a meal out of them. And I’m all, “They’re blueberries, throw them in whenever. They’ll cope with whatever you want to do with them.”

No.

Also, they’re a different variety of blueberry and, apparently, “too tough.” I’ve eaten them. They’re blueberries, not beef jerky.

Still, they’re a no.

He tried boiling them to make berry soup like a friend on the reservation used to make, but they didn’t change much. The disappointment was palpable.

Still, they’re perfectly edible, yet, I found him distressed and somehow having trouble trying to get the berries into his breakfast bowl. Verbal sniping over a stupid issue ensued.

I finally found myself leaving for work and telling the sky, “They’re just blueberries; it can’t be this complicated.”

Ultimately, though, it’s not worth it. I’ll eat these blueberries. I’ll give them away. We’ll throw them away. They are just berries after all.

He eats sushi. He’s foody enough. This berry thing, it’s just a quirk.

Me? I can’t properly deal with technology any longer.

It makes me sound 159 years old. I don’t care. I’m just tired of trying to keep up with the changes — new gadgets, new programs, new hardware, new social media, so many apps and things that don’t talk to each other.

Do I enjoy having a phone with its own dialing phone book. Yes. Enjoy instant messaging to my friends and family? Yes, just a little bit more than I hate it.

Do I constantly do things like hit dial when I mean to message, hang up instead of hit speaker phone, and make a full 30-second long “uuuuuuuhhhmmmm” sound while I’m trying to figure out some simple feature? Gads, yes.

Do I enjoy the luxury of endless photo-taking possibilities of a digital camera over a film camera? Absolutely. And I certainly couldn’t operate an 1840’s daguerrotype.

The ability to take photos with my smart phone and share them online or in messages is gratifying, but I cannot express the extent to which my joy is quashed and ground into the dirt as I try to jump through multiple hoops to get those photos from my phone to my computer or to my Facebook account.

Two million years ago, humans used rocks as hammers then one day about 30,000 years ago someone tied a wedge-shaped rock to a stick, thus the “modern” hammer was born. Since then we’ve figured out how to process metals into hammers, and then better metals. We’ve developed better materials for handles and invented better means of attaching the hammerhead to the handle.

We also have many specialized hammers. Someone even figured out that putting a tuning fork inside a hammer handle reduces the stress from vibration while hammering.

All that and I could, though, reach across 30,000 years and still use that first stone hammer to pound in a modern nail. I have, in fact, used a 2 million-year-old hammer successfully — yes, I’ve picked up a large rock off the ground and used it to hammer stuff. More than once. Because I can.

The prehistoric hammer tech still works and that makes sense in my soul.

I have worried that this quirk is a bigger problem. I couldn’t order an Uber ride to save my life and I somehow keep crashing my smart phone punching too many of the wrong buttons. I cannot learn tech.

I read recently, though, that “quirk,” in Japanese anime circles, is modern slang for “superpower.”

I have imagined whole scenarios in which I fight my way through a room full of cape-wearing, musclebound heroes to a computer hooked to a doomsday device, yelling “No” to each of their suggestions to crush, fry or throw into the stratosphere the computer, which is counting down to a big boom.

With 10 seconds to spare, I push aside the superbrain trying to hack into the system, start pushing keys and crash the system with one second to spare.

The quirky, tech-hating weirdo saves the day.

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Just call me Luddite Woman at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .