To ask for weird realisations you’ve had about life?

[goergia]

Things about mundane life that you’ve never given much thought but suddenly think “Now I think about it, that’s weird.”

I had one of these today. I live in a mid-terrace, neighbours are nice and quiet and we don’t hear a peep. A few days ago I had a snoop at one of the next-door neighbour’s house on Rightmove after seeing it was for sale, and realised that they have their bed right up against our party wall as I do mine. So even though I sleep in bed alone every night, there’s actually 2 people who I don’t really know just a couple of inches away from me! I don’t know why but for some reason it creeps me out. I’ve realised that in terraced houses you’re actually sharing one building with lots of people, many of whom you will NEVER interact with.

Everyone who has ever lived and died, their atoms are still here. Atom from a dinosaur, ancient warriors, your granny. Nothing is destroyed, only changed.

I sometimes think how incredibly connected we are to every living organism on this planet. I mean the chances of coexisting with that person in a random village in Siberia, or that bat in the Amazon, or that dandelion on the pavement outside in the same almost infinitesimally small section of both space and time are unimaginably small. We're all practically twins!

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

I wasn't all that interested in dinosaurs as a child so I was pretty damned surprised when I learned that they had existed for about 165 million years before the big extinction 65 million years ago. I had somehow thought that the dominant species would continuously evolve in intelligence until they were tool users/technological, and the only reason that the dinosaurs didn't was because their evolution was cut short. But dinosaurs were probably never going to do that, they evolved but only into different adaptations for different environments. They never got to the stage where they could deliberately control their environment. Humans did this pretty quickly, even if you start counting from the big extinction.

This makes a big difference for the Drake equation which is the probability of intelligent life on other planets. I had previously assumed that complex life would inevitably become intelligent life, but if it doesn't then that means far, far less chance of one day observing life on another planet.

I am going to sound like an absolute crackpot here but I was thinking about the exact same thing when my DD brought home a book about dinosaurs from school and there was a section that explained there is all sorts of life that we will never know about having ever existed because only certain/larger animals have made it into the fossil record.

And I also watched a mini documentary on youtube about how long evidence of human life would be around for if we all went extinct and actually, everything but markers in the atmosphere or in certain elements being present would have vanished in just a couple of million years.

So it actually had me thinking the opposite of what you thought, and I wondered how many iterations of intelligent life had been and gone for various reasons before us.

It's a fantastical thing to think about really.

@MuchuseasaChocolateTeapot

Not sure if this is a realisation but I was genuinely flabbergasted to the point of being angry that the midwives would let me take my newborn twins home when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing! I thought they were really irresponsible lol (and I was 33, happily married with a great support system), although they were premature and barely eating so that wouldn’t have helped my anxiety.

This! I was a single mum and it was my first DC but I couldn't beleive that they let me take my baby away from the hospital where she was safe. There was nothing wrong with either of us and we had stayed in for several days (different country to UK) but I still thought it was very irresponsible of them!

Now I have a hard time accepting my age and that I can't do all the things I would like to do. I am constantly making unrealistic plans and disappointing myself when I can't see them through because inside I still feel the same as when I was 20 years old. I don't think a younger me ever appreciated how little time we have on this earth. I always thought time was infinite. Ageing sucks!

Another one ................ we're all moving at 1000mph right now as the Earth spins.

Fossils amaze me-they have survived for sooooooooooo long!!!

A bit like the realisation of other people having entire lives, what I find interesting is when you are travelling or doing something out of the norm like getting on a plane or going to a concert, there are lots of other people doing the same thing at the same time, but you don't know them. I somehow love the randomness of that, all these millions of people crossing paths, making the decision to catch a particular plane for example, it's a complete coincidence that you and they both made that decision on that day. I guess it makes me think how much of life - like who we meet, who we are friends with, what jobs we do etc, is based on sheer chance/coincidence. All these millions of people going about their different lives but their lives intersecting at points. I guess that's the premise of the sliding doors movie.

And then I wonder how or if my presence in other peoples lives in the past (however brief) has influenced or changed their life in any way - butterfly wing type thinking I guess. What chain of events has occurred because I knew someone, or spoke to them, or met them once.

@sashh - your post about mitochondrial DNA blew my mind... and also made me feel a bit teary thinking of how it means all the women who've been, are and yet to come are connected.

@Comedycook

I had a horrible thought once whilst sitting with dh and my 2dc. One day, there will only be one of us left and the remaining one will have been to all three of our funerals. Pretty depressing

Yes I had similar depressing thoughts the other day, wondering which out of me and my siblings will go first. . None of my aunts and uncles have gone in order of age.

That no one ever considers themselves part of the problem. It’s always the fault of “the other” (looking at you (including me), Mumsnet!)

@Katkincake

Love all these and had similar thoughts myself, especially the people you see all having their own lives going on.

I learnt something recently at the grand age of 45 that made me stop & think.
I knew that tides are controlled by the moon’s gravity & move in and out in sequence down coastlines. But what happens to do this is that the water stays in one place pulled continuously towards the moon and the earth rotates under this fixed hump. I never thought about the physics of it till then.

Shut the front door...

So the water stays in the same place and it's the beach that moves?!!

@WhenDovesFly

I can't put it into words properly, but sometimes I get inside my own head and think - I actually exist. I am in control of this body. Would I have come into being if my mum hadn't met my dad? One day I'll die and that will be my time all over and done with. How lucky was I to be born into a loving family in a civilized country rather than into third world poverty or a war torn country. Is reincarnation real and will I exist again?

I occasionally get that feeling too. Hard to describe, but things feel hyper real. I can catch myself in the mirror and think, this is me, I am having these thoughts and no one else is.

Why people make appointments for, say, 2pm...and haven't phoned to say they'll be late/aren't coming?

I only give trades (replacing windows, this time) one chance now, this guy has 21 mins then his opportunity has gone.

Another one here who couldn't quite grasp that I was allowed home with my first baby when she was born. Like I love this tiny thing with every fibre of my being, I'd die for her, I'll protect her until my last breath.. but I'm now fully in charge of raising her?! I'm not qualified! How is this ok?! Even after we went home I kept thinking someone would come along and say ah sorry yes we need to take her now to someone more qualified to care for her. I actually had panic attacks for a while thinking that!

Another one for me that I randomly think about..

I MIGHT have been in within feet of my partner at some stage, but neither of us knew or noticed each other.

I MIGHT have been really close to a celebrity on the tube or in a hotel, and didn't recognise them

I MIGHT have brushed shoulders with , been in a lift with , on same public transport as a serial killer .

I think it would be stunning, if you could have bits of your played back to you ..like, "This was you in 1992 in London, see that person you've held the door open for in M&S? they have drugged and murdered 6 people, but today they have come to buy a new jumper. Theyhave just said thank you , and you have said 'no problem' "

I’ve worked with sex offenders who aren’t allowed out without anyone assisting them due to the likelihood they would offend.

I always found that a surreal feeling. Walking around and everything just being perfectly normal. I dunno…. It’s just like walking around knowing a secret that all the other strangers around you don’t know. Especially when said sex offender starts nicely chatting to people.

Used to make me feel strange.

So the water stays in the same place and it's the beach that moves?!!

No, that’s not how it works. The gravitational effect of the moon causes the water in the sea to bulge towards it slightly. That bulge pulls the water away from the shoreline. But the water that is pulled is the water that happens to be on the side near the moon (*).

*caveat - “because physics” there is also an ocean bulge on the opposite side of the planet at the same time, which is why there are two tides per day.

And because the moon also orbits the planet, in addition to the planet spinning, it takes about 50 minutes longer than the earths 24 hour rotation to get back to the “high tide” point where you are nearest the moon. Hence, 12 hour 24 minutes between high tides (half of 24 hours rotation and 50 minutes of catching up to the moons orbit).

@Rebeccasmoonnecklace

It always freaks me out to see Earth on the television as it makes me remember that we are inhabitants of a planet which is moving around within a galaxy. It’s almost too much information for my mind to compute, my DH thinks I’m weird for thinking this way and writing this down has made me hope I’m not the only one who feels this way

I think about this a lot. Especially when I see Hubble photographs.

@FussyLittleFucker

That when I was born, WW2 had ended less than 30 years previously. No wonder our grandparents talked about it a lot. To me, now, 30 years ago is like yesterday.

I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday. I was listening to a Madonna song and realised it was from nearly 40 years ago. 40 years before that was a world war. As you said the 80's/90's seemed like yesterday. Also the 1940's to the 80's was so different in fashion, attitudes, lifestyles etc.

@Orangecell

I’m late 40s and when I was born my great grandmother was alive who was born in 1898. My nephew was born 2014 and hopefully he will live to see the year 2100. This means that people alive in the 1800s, 1900s, 2000s and 2100s will have known me.

Similar to this, but much more amazing:

Baby girls are born with all the eggs they will ever produce already fully developed. They are formed at 20 weeks.

So the egg that went on to make me was part of my grandmother's body for 4 months, and if my dd has a dd the egg that will form her was part of my body.

So in a way part of 'me' will exist over 5 generations!!!!

It amazes me that we can form humans two weird tiny things - millions of little cells that get hormone treatment and grow into sperm on a kind of use and replace system, and eggs which you're born with - I formed in my Mom's stomach with the eggs that became my children. And from that we form complete generally similar humans. We share so much DNA with other species but you never get anything but a human out. And the incidence of serious genetic glitches is staggeringly low considering the complexity.

DS has a third extra chromosome in to different chromosomes but only in some cells. So when people say all cells are genetically identical, he's not. I wonder who he'd be if all his cells had only the only copies. I doubt he'd have survived if they'd all been wonky in these two places. And then twins born of the same parents who are so totally different to him, and who have (AFAIK) typical chromosomes but when their egg first split it went all the way and made two babies.

Like that's just crazy. How the hell did we ever evolve a planet full of so many complete organisms??

How do I know if other people see colours the same as I do? We both know it as blue but for all I know they could be seeing it as what I call red. And down the rabbit hole I go!

Ooh cross posted on egg @ElegantlyTouched. Also that your DNA in your Mitochondria is passed down from your Mom. It's exclusively Mom, and you'll pass it to your daughter. But mine dead ends cos I have boys. Thankfully mi sisters both have daughters so our Mom's Mitochondrial DNA is secure for at least one more generstion

Why on earth did we invent a weapon that could wipe out the whole earth ?

@forlornlorna

A realisation really hit me this year. I have a life limiting illness that is progressing faster than expected. It's the realisation that I won't be able to end my life in the final months even though I'll be in pain, unable to swallow or ...well anything really. And that people will do everything possible to keep me alive when I'm dying. Like why? Why do we let humans die long drawn out inevitable deaths but we allow animals to be put to sleep if they are suffering.

I'm doing end of life care atm. It's horrific. I agree