A Lovely Harmless Monster

Editing: blog/blind-spots

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title:Blind Spots
author:matt
tags:blog, personal
date:2025-05-08
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The other day, my spouse was telling me about how one of her friends, who is Christian, didn't know what Lent is. My spouse had to explain it to her. I don't know what denomination her friend belongs to, but it's a very open-minded and progressive church, which is cool. My spouse's friend shrugged and said "I thought it was just a Catholic thing."

I was very surprised by this, because even I, a lifelong non-religious person, knows about Lent. I thought it was so ingrained in secular US culture that everyone knows about it; we often hear jokes like "I'm giving up exercise for Lent". I didn't understand how a Christian of *any* denomination could be unfamiliar.

But it made me think of how recently I was in a car for the first time in awhile, and I forgot how to tell whether the door is locked. The lock had an orange position and a not-orange position. Orange is the color of caution, so I assumed orange meant *Danger! If you close the door, you'll be locked out! Make sure you have your key!* But it's actually the opposite, warning you that the door is unlocked-I assume because people keep valuable things in their cars, and they don't want strangers getting in and taking them.[^hotwire] [^hotwire2]

To someone steeped in car culture, it probably seems just as improbable as not knowing what Lent is. So before we judge someone for not knowing something, we should think about our own blind spots. It's an infinitely complex universe, and none of us can know about everything, so [share your knowledge with joy](https://xkcd.com/1053/) so that others might share theirs with you.

[^hotwire]: No one can actually "hot-wire" a car, right? That's just a thing on TV? Maybe cars were designed that way in the 20th century, but surely modern cars are more secure? It's too fantastical to be real.
 
[^hotwire2]: Prokyonid has kindly [provided some insight](https://mastodon.sdf.org/@prokyonid/114473306480897162) on the previous footnote: "You can't really 'hotwire' most cars like you used to be able to, which was just jumping the starter circuit usually completed by turning the key to the 'start' position, because that circuit has been complicated with various security checks that if failed will cause the engine computer to shut down the vehicle. / However, many vehicles can still be driven off with if you can get underhood access and jump both the fuel pump and starter circuits, although they'll run very poorly." Many thanks for the explanation.

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