Does anyone else reflect on 'Closer to Cleopatra than...' moments in their personal lives?

[Thurien]

We are told we are closer in time to Cleopatra today than when the first pyramids were built. Then there is Tyrannosaurus Rex which we are closer to than Stegosaurus.

Interesting enough, but what blows my mind more is time distances in my own life. Today I took a detour through the village where I was born and where I returned to live with my young family. There, one of the DC's and I sat on a small hill by the wood's edge and watched young squirrels playing. DC was about 3 and shreiking with joy as they gambled about.

As I drove through today, I reflected that my own early years seemed like a whole eternity before DC came along. It was really like a different life. Yet from the squirrels to now seems like just a decade or two, but still very much connected to now.

Anyone else get these type of thoughts?

It's not all that's left of his time spent on earth. Some of his DNA runs through every cell in your body.

I think this a lot! A reflection on when most of the innovation in pop music happened as much as anything.

That is lovely and I never thought of it

My parents were 54 and 49 when my youngest dc was born in 1996

Looking back I remember them as being much older than I am now at 54 😕 scary

I remember when I was 14, my mum dropped me off to a friends house and there was a group of lads of about 15/16 who I vaguely knew from school and one of them said “your mum’s fit” and I was like “gross, she’s old you weirdo”.
She would have been 43, 3 years younger than I am now and I still think I look perfectly respectable (although not dreaming of being “fit” to 16 year olds).

Bit silly to compare it to what you have.
Obviously we all have those moments in our lives. But the point is within living memory.
All of those past events constitute a blip in time. Our memories and lives even less so.
It's nice and normal to get nostalgic, everyone does.
There won't be a single one of us thinking wistfully of a woolly mammoth from way back when.

Just watching that awful Popmaster programme and Gareth Malone answered "Sex Pistols" for 'Teenage Rampage' in 1974. But the Pistols came along only two years later. Hard to believe Sweet and Sex Pistols were that close in time.

Pop music is amazing for this. As of last month, the Beatles’ first record is closer to the Victorian era than it is to now.

😲

Sorry if someone has said anything similar...

I'm 61 (and feel 31,) and the 1980s seems like 20 years ago to me. I was born in 1963, and still feel like I have grown up in 'modern times.'

Yet my grandparents who didn't die until the 1970s and 1980s (when I was a teen/young woman,) were born when Queen Victoria was on the throne! Victorian times! 1800s! Charles Dickens times. No electric or cars or any mod cons at all. Olden days. Yet my grandparents who were alive when I was a teen/young adult were alive then!

Someone said to me the other day that there's the same amount of years between a 20 yr old and a 60 yr old as between a 60 yr old and a 100 yr old. That blew my mind slightly!

On graves: I occasionally walk the dog through a local graveyard because it's peaceful and quiet. Some of the graves are very old and tired and I find myself repeating the names on them - just so that person's name has not been said for the very last time.

I wonder who alive remembers them - if anyone.

In my local village Church graveyard, they have gravestones (pulled off old graves many years ago and placed against the brick walls,) that are from the 16th century ... I am fascinated by them.

'R.I.P. Eliza Jane, loving mother of Eli. 1691-1739.'
'Richard John - father and brother - lies here... 1703-1776.'
'William Robert passed onto our Lord so young. 1698-1723.
'Anne - the lovely mother of 3 sons. Born July 15th 1679, passed away August 24th 1729.'

Gravestones there, from people BORN nearly 350 years ago. That's medieval times!

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The other pop music one I like is a kind of reverse-Cleopatra moment. I imagine in 1986 Morrissey felt like he was heralding the end of the monarchy, but as things turned out the Queen was on the throne for so long that The Smiths’ “The Queen Is Dead” ended up being closer to the start of her reign than to the end of it.

Funny you should say that as I was out shopping this afternoon and thought of this thread. I spotted a teen wearing a Nirvana top and thought that it would have been the same as us in the 90s wearing Beatles t-shirts (and plenty of us did ).