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I have the ability to know exactly what time it is, down to the minute (well, within 2 minutes) without looking at a clock, even if I haven't looked at a clock all day. My wife will ask me what time it is, and I'll say, "3:47," and then when somebody checks a clock, I'm spot on.
It's pretty handy, but it sucks for fighting crime and/or evil.
Posts: 1528 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Hey, a gift is a gift, and is supposed to be used to help people, wetwilly, even if the help doesn't involve fighting crime, etc. (Though it might be fun to figure out how such a skill might be useful for a police detective.)
I'm working on empathy and discernment as super-powers I'd like to have.
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I used to be able to sense police when I was speeding. I did it in front of friends while driving and as a passenger. I would slow down to the speed limit and seconds later a squad car would go by. Speed didn't matter.
I could do it until I was nineteen. And, no, I wasn't busted for speeding until I was twenty-one. At nineteen and a few months, I sped up to a squad that had someone pulled over and I hadn't sensed it.
Posts: 133 | Registered: Mar 2014
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I see through veils, disguises, hidden agendas, purposeful or unintended deceptions, behind the scenes, underneath subtexts. In every pysch eval I've sat for, I've sat for an above average number, the evauator has remarked that I perceive differently than a normative social expectation. For me, personally, this is a survival strategy developed over time due to the cruel abuses of manipluators causing me harms by their deceptions and selfish agendas.
One practical and useful function of this curse is detecting scams, hoaxes, schemes, and such, and courteously tipping off interested persons so they avoid hardships and harms.
How else does this helps others? I often keep my counsel to myself so that I don't tip off malignant abusers of that information and cause harm to their unwitting victims nor expose any person's identity-crippling delusions. One handy side ability is to keep my own judgments and feelings and attitudes to myself so they won't taint a meaningful interaction. When I truly turn this skill that's a blessed curse to noble uses is when a person needs and asks for insight, but can never be for a personal gain. The cobbler's feet are never shorn.
I am an empath. I deeply feel others' emotions, sometimes to the point of harms to myself. Yet overall, this gives me advance notice of upcoming outbursts so that I can avoid them if need be or possible or at least prepare for an onslaught, for good or ill.
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I know the exact wrong thing to say. The one thing that will make the situation worse. It hurts people and makes them not want to be around me anymore.
My weakness is that I say it anyway.
Also I'm great at finding money on the ground.
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I've been told, mostly by my mom, that I have the ability of Discernment. I've also been known to be very intellectual at times of extreme stress and confusion of the people around me. My mom in particular was dealing with the uncertainty of leaving my dad (whom she had been married to for over 10 years)and I was able to help her make sense of our situation and support her. Although, I feel like God did more of that than me.
Part of my super power might also be the ability to sense and absorb, or spread, emotions to and from the people around me.
Something like that anyway!
Posts: 114 | Registered: Feb 2014
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I have the power to see the obvious. Really! It's a lot less common than you'd think.
I was at the farmer's market the other day and this elderly disabled veteran's electric wheelchair breaks down. "I can't get back on the path," he says.
Immediately four guys leap to help. They try to push the wheelchair off the grass back onto the pavement, which doesn't work because this is not that kind of wheelchair. But all the while I can see that getting his wheelchair onto the path will be no help at all, because he'll still be stuck, just five feet from where he is now.
However I say nothing, because when a group of guys are focused on getting something done, experience has taught me that the news that what they're trying to do is pointless is seldom well received. Seeing the obvious is kind of like being a mutant in the Marvel universe; it's wiser to keep knowledge of that ability on the DL.
So I settle in to observe while they wrestle with the chair. Finally they settle on lifting the chair, with the veteran in it, back onto the path, and now they see the problem. It is the perfect time for me to step in, because no contentious explanations are called for. Also, I have noted that the veteran had hung the plastic bag containing his purchases on the left arm of his chair, but that the bag had slipped off was hanging on the cable running from the joystick panel to the motor control box.
"If I may," I say, and I remove the plastic bag from the motor control cable, whereupon the wheelchair comes back to life. I hang the bag on the other arm. "Off you go, sir!"
Another day, another crisis averted by my super-obvious power.
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Well, here's Grumpy to lower the happiness threshold. I have a 100% success rate at discerning the motives behind murders (particularly sex-based serial killings) and creating a profile of the perpetrator(s). I can't do it now because I saw a crime scene where the victim looked identical to my young son. I lost my dispassionate outlook, stopped living in the minds of monsters and moved on.
If you're interested in the technique (as opposed to TV's and movies pathetic attempts) I recommend reading Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: If you're interested in the technique (as opposed to TV's and movies pathetic attempts) I recommend reading Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker.
I've read that book plus others by John Douglas as well as books by Robert Renssler, AND the FBI's CRIME CLASSIFICATION MANUAL. All quite fascinating, IMHO.
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It's probably the reason I spend so much time in developing the 'back-story' for my milieus. We are the product of our environment and experiences with one exception; we can choose not to act on our baser urges--unless we're insane, of course. The most evil person in the world ultimately chooses to be evil despite all the excuses they come up with to 'justify' why it isn't their fault.
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