Aspies For Freedom

I love finding out about stuff from all different subjects.
This stuff is pretty useless. History is a big one.
OK example - Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves.

Vampires. During the time of the Black Death, many afflicted people would through fever and illness, fall into a light coma. They would be buried and come to...six feet under. People near the graveyard would hear hysterical screaming and so forth. They would organise a group of villagers to confront the beast. Usually the poor wretch was dead but had blood in their mouth where they had bitten themselves in their hysteria and blood under their fingernails where they had tried to climb out of the coffin. Naturally they hadn't started decomposing or anything yet and so the villagers assumed they had gone off sucking blood and cut their heads off, etc. Occassionally the insane person was still alive and frightened the villagers in "awakening from the dead", so naturally they killed it!

Werewolves. Some Northern Tribes of Europe used to race into battle dressed in animal skin and headress. Some of these were the Beserkers, who used to excite themselves into such a frenzied state that they would race into battle and kill in animalistic fury without weapons. Because of the adrenaline, they were all but impervious to pain too.

Zombies. Real...sort of. In Haiti people quite often fell sick and "died" and got buried, before the voodoo priestess bought them back to life. They would be socially shunned and remain life servants of the voodoo priestess. It was found that the zombies were actually drugged into coma by use of a poisin derived from blowfish. This also slightly brain damaged them. A saw an interview with a zombie. (after this practice was exposed and him rescued). He sounded slightly intellectually retarded and docile. He was still shunned by the villagers and was very tramatised by getting buried.

Eventually the knowledge will come into use, especially if you're going to University or decide to become an author.

My extensive knowledge of Nazi germany, Irish mythology and pre 20th Cenutry history and the American civil war have helped me in my A-Levels considerably.

Although, being fluent in Tolkien's Elvish hasn't helped much.....

<wide grin>  I feel like I'm finally on the right planet.  Mae govannen, Paddyahern.

When I was around eight or so, I was fascinated with monsters.  I had a book that I never let out of my sight, all about werewolves, vampires, zombies, lake monsters, sea monsters, etc.  I read that one and a few about ghosts so many times that I still remember most of all of them.  Parapsychology has always fascinated me.

I too feel like a repository of useless trivia.  Knowing the details of the alternate history posited by "The Da Vinci Code" and "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", studying Elvish, knowing the birthdates of Harry Potter characters...none of this is likely to be useful to me in a practical sense.  And yet this "useless" stuff is often the only thing that makes me happy, the only stuff I can really focus on.

It's always been that way.  Even as a little girl, it seemed so vitally important that I know exactly how keep vampires and werewolves at bay.

<hugs>

Athie

I'd say that searching for such information could be a way of getting away from stress(which is quite often something positive). When you know such information you could think about it aswell to get away from stress and it could be a practise of thinking, learning yourself some tricks. Genious people are known to find solutions from totally irrelevant subjects.

(Happy razzy face hath been sent)

People TELL me I'm a fount of useless knowledge.

If this is so with you, NEVER LOSE THAT! Embrace it, enjoy it, find out everything that you can about everything.

For me, the general themes of useless knowledge (among others) are: myth and folklore (o'course ) Neanderthals, animals, and movies.

So called "USELESS" knowledge gives us a way to expand our brains, fend off the decay that comes with many people's old age, keep us young and alert, and reduce the stress that comes with the monotony of living.

After all, what are we without such esoteric joys, if not a useless dried out shell?

Cool Philosophy! I Like it.

nyanchan, I love Neanderthals!

My friend has a theory that they never disappeared; they just started calling themselves "Portuguese."

(My friend is Portuguese, and he's just kidding...)

All that useless information has been useful to me when I play trivia games

I know all about digital cameras I can't afford, van Gogh's life, Amsterdam, and a lot of other things that I hope will serve for somethingi n the future.

caanilorac, don't you sometimes see people who are kicking everyone's ass on Jeopardy or "Trivial Persuits" or something, and you just know they're Aspie?

Meega, I love faeries!  I've been trying to contact them since I was little.

Hmm.  Is it at all typical of Aspies to believe in, well, everything?

<hugs>

Athie

Nah. Agnosticism is much more common. But diversity exists among us as in any other group

One person's trash is another person's treasure.

That's why the system of trade exists.

Know I do.

"What if...?" are the two most liberating words in the English language, because they are the beginning of possibilities and the best food for imagination.

(And that's as new-agey as I am EVER going to get.)

You never know when a seemingly obscure piece of knowledge might come in handy....