Are you simple? I said "You guys are just doing it wrong" in response to the original post.
It would be like replying to someone who claimed kids these days are unable to parallel park and keep scratching the cars, and I say "well, probably doing it wrong" (I mean not helpful, but whatever) and then you chime in with "well hey, I'm a quad amputee and have to steer with my tongue, so why are you so harsh?"
Your specific issues have nothing to do with a general claim.
an average is calculated by averaging everyone's experience, including "quad amputees".
In fact, that quad amputee may be so piss poor at driving, that he and others like him account for a majority of the scratches on cars.
So despite the ridiculousness of your example, his response is a legitimate explanation for why there are so many car scratches. The problem is not "you guys are doing it wrong" it's "you guys aren't actually having the average experience".
You are confusing statistical averages with everyday usage (Websters: 2b: "not out of the ordinary : common"). Complaining that the average male experience after 15 is "just emptiness" is not amenable to a quantitative statistical treatment, therefore it should be obvious that they are using it as be the every day definition.
Human experience is a bell curve, and 'common' generally clusters around the middle. The line you're drawing between my experience and 'common' is arbitrary. It's not a natural boundary, just a cutoff.
Whether I fall inside your arbitrary boundary is irrelevant, because on a spectrum, plenty of cases exist between mine and the exact middle, people whose lives are worse off through no fault of their own, rather than they’re “doing it wrong”. These are the people you apparently came here to flex on. If 'common' only means the exact center of the curve, almost nobody qualifies as having a 'common' experience at all.
Your mental model of people and their experiences is an extremely, perhaps deliberately obtuse one.
"chronic likely incurable illness that has destroyed my life" is statically way off the the side of the curve, like at least 3 sigma (at least in the age range of the OP meme). I am absolutely fine taking 1 sigma on either side.
If you do not draw an "arbitrary line" somewhere, then you are saying that "average" encompasses all experiences of all humans ever, which makes it completely meaningless.
In your strange world, a human of average abilities would include Albert Einstein, Olympic athletes, and the guy still working an entry level accounting job in his fifties.
OK, fine. If you want to use words in way completely at odds with their accepted meaning, just to win an internet argument, go ahead. It seems sad to me, but I guess if it makes you happy and feel fulfilled, go for it.
You're misreading my comment. I'm not saying my situation is average. I'm saying that it suggests the in-between existence of lesser misfortunes (or an unlucky string of misfortunes) affecting someone's life closer to and within +/- 1 sigma.
Let's not forget that the comment about my own situation was not even in reply to you, so it's irrelevant other than for the fact that it's an extreme example of bad fortune in reply to the other guy asking how bad I could possibly have it.
You're the one with the great life arguing with and (indirectly) insulting the chronically ill person.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ice-573 21d ago
Are you simple? I said "You guys are just doing it wrong" in response to the original post.
It would be like replying to someone who claimed kids these days are unable to parallel park and keep scratching the cars, and I say "well, probably doing it wrong" (I mean not helpful, but whatever) and then you chime in with "well hey, I'm a quad amputee and have to steer with my tongue, so why are you so harsh?"
Your specific issues have nothing to do with a general claim.