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.

That clothes are just body coverings that nobody really cares about. Fashion doesn’t really matter, as long as you’re warm & comfortable. Face creams, posh or cheap, are pots of goo that make no difference to your face whatsoever. Often one looks better without make-up / hair products. I only notice very well-dressed / stylish folk (and even then, so what?), most people don’t need to bother...
Also, being fat / thin / blonde / brunette. Makes no difference, really! Skin colour, the same. I genuinely can’t figure out why issues with it even exist. I just can’t see why?

That I will never know if we see the same colours as eachother. If my blue is your blue. I know this is a popular thing but its still strange.

Realising that a lot of people in good jobs are not as smart as I thought.

@Jobseeker19

That I will never know if we see the same colours as eachother. If my blue is your blue. I know this is a popular thing but its still strange.

Realising that a lot of people in good jobs are not as smart as I thought.

But isn't blue (or red, green whatever) a distinct wavelength? So we will all see the same colour.

What a brilliant thread! I've wondered about so many of these before. How different animals evolve and develop new ways of doing things also blows my mind. And did my cat learn how to pounce on wasps (like a sort of bungee pounce where she rebounds immediately) from her mother, from bitter experience or is it somehow innate?

I find it mind blowing how awful/destructive/murderous exploration/invasion/empire-building was. I look at a country like USA and think - there was a whole place full of people living their way before some bastards rocked up. Same with the Vikings. And slavery of course. What would those places be like now if that hadn't happened, if the empire-building nations had not been like that.

Yes but I dont know if your brain sees it as I see red or another colour.

That in 5 billion years the sun will have used up all of it’s hydrogen.
It will then turn into a red giant star, swallowing up the inner planets.
The earth and all life will be gone.
Whatever life was here at that time will be as different to us as we are to a single celled creature.

That we’re all simply putting a ‘spin’ on our lives.

@Jobseeker19

Yes but I dont know if your brain sees it as I see red or another colour.

People must see colours differently both due to eye variations and brain variations.

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.

😀 @DontStopMeNow7

That we are all descended from the first people to evolve, a thin ribbon extending all the way back about 300,000 years ago to the first Homo sapiens. That someone I know is the last in their branch, they don’t have children or siblings, so when they are gone, their history finishes.

I like this. Life is such an odd thing. We are such a minuscule part of the universe. So many people are stupid.

That, apart possibly from identical twins, there are no two people in the whole world that look absolutely identical. Many very similar but not identical.

I find it odd that food essentially tastes the same, but some people will like the taste and others won’t! Why is that?

And also sleep. I mean we have to pretend to be asleep in order to fall asleep. Do other animals have to do that?!

@Dinoteeth

Also how come on such a small island we have so many accents. You don’t have to drive all that far to encounter people who sound completely different

That's easy, have you ever saw a visitor book from 1900 ? I saw one at an Abbey, nobody had travelled more than 5-10 miles. I think one or two people had travelled beyond that.
Travel wasn't easy horse power was limited, people stayed local, they didn't have TV and radio so they only heard the local accent which would evolve through time.

I remember my NDN being stunned that "normal" people (so not the v rich) didn't go abroad for a 2 week holiday in 1800s and earlier...she just couldn't understand that there was no such thing as annual leave entitlement or air travel. She struggled a bit with "before cars" too...

Spend way too much time thinking that for 95% of the world's population since time began, life has been miserable, involving long hours of hard work and poverty. So how did I get lucky enough to avoid this, but am still depressed??? Why can't my brain just be happy that I'm never hungry!!!

In particular as I'm chilling on the sofa watching telly, I imagine my grandparents (who I never met and had very hard working lives with no appliances and used to unwind by going to Chapel 4 times on Sunday) looking at my life in disbelief and wondering why I can't hoover every now and then!

The one I can't get to grips with is how the hell we got to the moon and back in the 60s with v little technology compared to now...and that nobody's been back.
Plus, most of the stuff which landed on the moon is still there!

@WeOnlyTalkAboutBruno

That the people in charge don’t have a fucking clue.

When I was younger I used to walk around safe in the knowledge that while things can get bad, they will only reach a certain level of bad before “those in charge” will step in and fix it.

Not so.

I hated realising this. I also hate being the one in charge!

I've realised that in terraced houses you're actually sharing one building with lots of people

Sometimes more than others. Ex's friend worked in an estate agents in Newcastle. Apparently the terraces there often shared one loft space running the length . Nightmare for burglaries if the loft hatch in each wasn't secured.

@dipdye well if you think about it for a long time countries didn't mix. So everyone just did their own thing and wasn't influenced by anyone else.

I have this thought that's there's no more truly original ideas. Everything has been done and now new concepts tend to come off the back of old ones.

When you see the moon in the sky - that it is't just like the sun, which 'disappears' towards the end of the day when the earth has spun so far that you can no longer see it but has it's own completely different trajectory but around the earth.

@Dinoteeth

Countries like Canada, America and Australia all had people emigrate from different places so the accents would have been diluted / mixed together. Or they'd never understand each other. Those countries have really only been populated in the last 250 years? Travel has become easier in the last 100 years with trains, buses and cars. Coupled with hearing the same accents on TV and Radio.

UK accents are less pronounced than they were for the same reasons. I remember an old guy I'd just met at work telling me about his doctor, then it twigged it was his daughter he was talking about. .
You don't seem to get those really thick accents now.

Yes, this ^

I'm in Australia but visit the UK on a semi-regular basis. In the past when I was "home" in Devon, the accents were so thick, you could cut them with a knife. Now everyone sounds like BBC newsreaders. I think that easy travel and electronic communications have made a huge difference to everyone's accents.

I often get struck with how pointless modern life is. All we need is food, shelter and some company. Yet we live elaborate stressful lives some days I really just don’t get it.