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.

@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.

No way. Very interesting!

No matter where you go, there you are.

Probably been said apologies not rad the full thread but sliding doors.
We are all literally here by chance. If I hadn’t have missed the train I wouldn’t have met my husband..
When I think of what ifs I get a bit lost, honestly whether it’s good or bad life is fate and chance
What if?

@CurlyBurley

That life is a series of 'sliding doors' moments. If I hadn't decided to apply for my job, I wouldn't have met my husband. If I hadn't had sex in March 2012 my son wouldn't exist... Etc.

This - so much! Especially the things you didn’t intend or want to do. I really didn’t want to go to a barbecue last year but felt obliged snd reluctantly turned up as late as I could get away with and met someone who radically changed my entire life. On another occasion I went to a party at the May minute with a friend whose partner had let her down snd got into conversation in the loo queue with a woman who put me in touch with someone who gave me my dream job.

De CD

That I am the result of every ancestor of mine meeting at the right time and having sex, for thousands of years. I am the result of millions of years of evolution and chance meetings.

Also that almost every couple you pass by has sex. I find it really weird to think of. It is weird to think of but it just feels so weird.

A thought I've had since I was old enough to understand how reproduction works is how small a chance it is that we as individuals actually exist. That one specific sperm that happened to be produced and win the race against all at that one specific time. If conception was an hour later or we were second to the egg would we be someone else? The odds of you being you must have been very high.

When I pass houses on a train I see they are actually basic brick boxes, but people have to get up everyday and go out to work all day everyday for a almost lifetime to pay for them.

@Toloveandtowork

I'm blown away by how much mother's do. We physically and psychologically support each generation and are given lille credit for it. Every human wants a supportive, loving and nurishing mother and it's projected on to all women, by men, children and other women. The story of Adam and Eve is basically: ' You made me do it.' Women aren't superhuman Madonnas, yet we are it is projected on us as a 'standard' and if that breaks us, nobody wants to know. Most men don't grow up. Women carry the whole world.

💯👏

A bit random, but that before glass/mirrors etc were invented, you would be walking around completely unaware of what your own face looked like.

I've shopped online for years as hate supermarkets due to one of these weird realisation moments. That everything (all fresh anyway) in that shop is going to be guzzled and consumed by these humans in the shop this week and if aliens landed and saw us they would see a world of fleshy guzzlers. Enormous eating machines. Supermarkets just weird me out ever since.

Also that almost every couple you pass by has sex. I find it really weird to think of. It is weird to think of but it just feels so weird

I never thought this until I read a post on here years ago by an asexual person who said it blew their mind that so many people you walk past in the street have sex regularly as a recreational activity. When I thought about it, I could understand what they meant despite not being asexual myself.

That the impact of my decisions, as in just everyday ones, have probably changed the course of others lives. A bit like sliding doors only for others.

@headspin10

That we look at people weirdly if they breastfed their 6 year old, but we as adults still drink breastmilk! - only even weirder - from a different species 🤢🤢🤢

It's actually incredibly cruel too- the newborn calves are removed permanently from the mother cows at just hours old so we can have the milk. Many are shot (males)

Grim.

It's also not healthy give what the purpose of lactation is; forming stomach lining via rapid cell division, which of course in adults is not ideal.

When I think of my children, or others, for e.g. The Royal Family, I cannot get my head around the fact that I wont be here for all of their lives...I hope they and I are around for a good while yet, but it seems impossible that i wont know my son and daughter as late middle aged or elderly people. I might not see William and Katherine as King and Queen, in my head I'll be here for all of it and it stops me short when I realise that I wont!

@JangolinaPitt

I love hearing stories like that. Small moments which become really quite significant.

Does anybody remember the website faceparty? It was quite small and existed before FB. I made an account in 2003 when I was 14. Some boy kept adding me and I kept deleting him, but due to his persistence I remembered his face.

Bumped into him in a bar 3 years later and was like omg your the faceparty boy.

Roll on to 2022, really happily married with 3 kids, 1 who’s at secondary school. I realise now the more I am getting older what a gift it is to be married but actually happy with it.

So glad I had a faceparty account.

@mrziggycoco

'purpose of lactation is; forming stomach lining via rapid cell division' - I might have fell asleep during that lecture so grateful for an explanation?

Sleep is odd when looked at from a predation perspective. Most prey animals choose to lose consciousness for several hours while their predators either do the same or asynchronously don't and hunt for unconscious prey.

Blows my mind that we couldn’t decide if they are mostly picked up from aerosolised particles, or through touching contaminated surfaces. How did we (scientists) not already know this?

to be fair, scientists understand about the various ways in which viruses transmit, whether by animal vector, sexual contact, surface transmition, aerosols, droplets or other (IV, blood transfusion and so on). What needed to be confirmed for a novel virus was which mechanism was clinically relevant on a population basis in the wild which might not certainly be the same as other coronaviruses. Aerosol, droplet or surface could be posited but without evidence, it would tend towards assertion and risk people using the results of studies to them call into question the independence or good faith and not always for good faith reasons.

At any given time, somewhere in the world, while you're quietly going about your day, somebody else's ordinary boring life is changing in a completely unforeseen and horrible way.

My job has really brought this home to me.

Another one from me. Photos and videos absolutely freak me out. It blows my mind that we can capture what we see/a moment in time forever. When I watch old home videos or look at photos, I think this is mad. I am looking at/watching the past. When I die my children can watch me in videos/actually look at my memories.

Just mind blowing.

@Tinkerbellflowers

The two triangles in pre-packed supermarket sandwiches are not made from the same square of bread.

What ?

[quote Zilla1]@mrziggycoco

'purpose of lactation is; forming stomach lining via rapid cell division' - I might have fell asleep during that lecture so grateful for an explanation?[/quote]
What do you think the purpose of lactation is, and how does it achieve this purpose?

Biologically I mean.