MetaChat is an informal place for MeFites to touch base and post, discuss and
chatter about topics that may not belong on MetaFilter. Questions? Check the FAQ. Please note: This is important.
20 May 2011
Time for another Friday Night Question, chosen at random from The Book of Questions:→[More:]
#18: If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one ability or quality, what would it be?
I guess omnipotence would be nice, since it kind of encompasses everything else. But that's not really a fun answer.
So something that can't be turned into every other possible ability, then. I would like the power to heal. The power to instantly fix any physical injury, damage, or decline in myself or others.
Ok, but that's not a real thing. So something that is actually a real quality: I'd like to be one of those people who has boundless mental energy and enthusiasm.
My gut reaction is eternal youth and health. But that might get old. I guess A MILLION DOLLARS is not an ability or quality? Then I want the ability to make A MILLION DOLLARS with very little effort. Perhaps by day trading or something like that.
I don't even need to be able to teleport myself. If I could just teleport stuff from here to there, I'd be pretty psyched. I'd use it at the library. I'd use it at the grocery store. Man, moving would be a snap!
(This is actually something I think about waaaaaay too often. Standing at the library check-out, I find myself longing for the day when I can teleport things home.)
If we're talking supernatural powers, though, I'd be torn between wanting the ability to heal people, and flying. In my dreams, flying is like a secret I have to hide as well as I can, but I use it to escape danger. Sometimes I get caught, sometimes I get spotted in the sky but the people on the ground can't do anything about it, and sometimes I get away with it. So, I feel like I have practice already.
Have always wanted some of the abilities animals have that I don't: the way dolphins can swim and flex, the amazing sense of smell and hearing of my dog, the sheer pleasure from heat and touch my cats experience, the unimaginable sense of sensation reptiles get from their Jacobson's organ.
Superpowers like healing or invisibility or time travel sound cool too.
I'm always working on wisdom and empathy and patience, though. In the end I guess I'd most like one of those.
Superpowers: Telepathy. I'd love to be able to *actually* read people's minds, so that I didn't have to keep reining in my tendency to *assume* that I can read people's minds.
Maybe I'm just boring, but superpowers don't really hold that much appeal. I want mundane powers like the ability to not feel stress or the ability to wake up easily in the morning.
In-reality: Self confidence. I know what I can do, I know I am good, I know I am cool, I am honestly able to do anything I put my mind to doing, I know all that. But every job review, every criticism says vocally otherwise (and doesn't that just erode at the confidence? Seems defeating to me, personally).
Hmmm. Superpowers? Time travel would be pretty awesome, especially if I could change nothing related to me, but could fix things for other people.
I'd like to have Santa Claus-like powers. For real. The time manipulation and the elves and the maybe-immortality. Because I'd really like Santa to be real, and I think it'd be a fun job. But I'd need the powers, too.
If we're talking about superpowers, I'll join the ability-to-travel-through-time-and-space bandwagon.
If a "real" ability that some people actually appear to have... the ability to be fully refreshed on a few hours of sleep, and be able to easily reset my natural waking and sleeping times to the hours of my choice.
I would like the ability to excrete artisanal cheeses. Then I could sell those cheeses for crazy money and be all HA HA HA PEOPLE ARE PAYING TO EAT MY POOP.
Or the power to kill people with my mind. That would be cool, too.