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.

Here’s another one- the Falklands war. A family member served in it. 40 years ago!
The same amount of time has now passed since 1982 until now ,than it did from WW2 to 1982… if that makes sense?!

Yet, if you told school children in 1982 about the 1940s it would have seemed like ancient history to them.
Yet the 1980s still feels fairly recent to me!

@Ace56

I think this has already been mentioned, but the fact that one day in billions of years, the sun will die, form a black hole and engulf the whole of our solar system into it. I remember learning about the life cycle of stars in my teens and this blew my mind.

Where does the matter which is sucked into a black hole actually go?? I still don’t get it.

Our sun isn't big enough to become a black hole. It will be a red giant and then eventually collapse back down to a white dwarf. Any planets that don't get swallowed up in the red giant phase will continue to orbit more or less as they currently do.

Another thing I’ve realised at 60 is your inner voice and thoughts don’t really change— that late middle aged person I see in the mirror still has the same 22 year old voice talking in her head— she just doesn’t look the same.

*That a significant proportion of the UK population is racist, xenophobic and incredibly right-wing.

I mean, I always knew some people were, but there seem to be far more of them than I ever imagined*

This :( Not just UK specific actually, and I've not thought it in the exact same words but I have said to my partner a few times along the lines of - I thought that most people were inherently what I consider "good" in that they are compassionate, empathetic and definitely not racist, xenophobic or otherwise prejudice. But now I'm in my late 20's (oh god) I'm realising that actually, many people don't share my world view. Perhaps it's a bit arrogant, but I genuinely thought it was a fringe state of mind to be right wing to the point of not wanting immigrants to come over or to be racist etc. And realising that not only many people think that, but that overall these regressive ideas are actually gaining traction, is very depressing.

Luckily I am the kind of person where that only strengthens my resolve to be different from that.

P.s. my post above also applies to attitudes towards women.

@Catlady2021

Here’s another one- the Falklands war. A family member served in it. 40 years ago! The same amount of time has now passed since 1982 until now ,than it did from WW2 to 1982… if that makes sense?!

Yet, if you told school children in 1982 about the 1940s it would have seemed like ancient history to them.
Yet the 1980s still feels fairly recent to me!

Omg. That is scary

@DontStopMeNow7

That the universe just goes on forever. Literally doesn’t end. There’s no wall anywhere but if there was one what would be on the other side anyway. Why can’t human brains understand infinity, or nothingness?

I think we can't understand concepts like infinity or death because there is no evolutionary need for it. Our brains evolved for survival only for millions of years. Now we no longer to hide from dinosaurs to get by our brains are gradually evolving to understand theoretical concepts that have no immediate survival benefit. But it's a very slow process. We understand loads more than early men man did but if the human race is still around in 300 million years our understanding will probably seem on a level with Neanderthals to the people that live in the future and whose brains have evolved far beyond ours. .

Same situation but with the baths being side by side in identical bathrooms in our semi detached house. Used to feel really uncomfortable if I heard someone get in the bath a few cm away from me 😂

@pussycatunpickingcrossesagain

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!

Didn't happen!

One thing that’s got stuck in my head the last few weeks is about how quick life goes and how we will all just go and a whole new lot of people will live here for their set amount of time then the same thing will happen to them. I’m only 30 yet the fact 12 years of my life have passed since I was at school is just insane. 12 years is a massive chunk of your life! Also the fact I’m now ‘past’ the stage of nightclubs etc and wouldn’t thank you for a night out like that yet the fact I will possibly never do it again makes me feel weird. One day I just walked out a club for the last time and we didn’t arrange another night out like that again.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say but I’ve basically just got it stuck in a loop in my head this sudden realisation of actually not having that long here at all then you’ll be dead, gone, fell off the face of the earth, never to return 🤔 how are we all just trailing into work every morning to jobs we don’t even like to waste another day there when we know this as a fact?! It’s so baffling

I've not read every page, so don't know if tho has been brought up..
But..
Who laid all the roads and decoded where they had to be.. As old roads were cobbled? and made all the massive old buildings.. So big and strong still standing old textile Mills etc.. If not so long ago.. Eg early. . 1900s? .. It was all horse and cart no jcbs/cranes/stone carrying lorries etc.. When did all this happen? And how?
I suppose its a bit like how did the build the pyramids..

Totally the same, told everyone 'Dont burn me'.... just dont want to end like that....

The average number of hours a day someone aged 55+ in the UK spends watching tv is abut 5-6 hours. If someone sleeps for c8 hours then they spend c1/3 of their awake life for their later years watching TV.

Layer in that the average human has an average of about 29000 days of life.

@Sarah13xx this makes me think of something someone told my about my children and them growing up - ‘you remember the firsts but don’t notice the lasts until they are past’. It’s so so true and made me notice and treasure certain things about my second child (and my parents) that I otherwise wouldn’t have in the same way x

Just realised every action, every thoughts from early age has put me where I am now, why could I've not had different action, where would I be now I've done things different

@Okaaaay totally, I actually think this is why I’ve started thinking like this. My little boy is 8 months and just the speed that he’s growing and the fact I’m constantly planning ahead thinking will we have another one? Will another one be the last one? If we don’t, it’s just him and I don’t ever get to do all of that again ☹️ I feel like I’ve just floated through all of the years up til now and now I’m suddenly so aware how fast time is going

That I have ancestors who lived through Tudor times (when the mortality rate was extremely high) Elizabethan times, the plague….and other such things, what were they like, where did they come from….am I descended from vikings? Or Anglo Saxon? Or Roman? That stuff just fascinates me.

@Wineinthegarden Timezones are interesting to me. Is it Russia that has 11 or 12 time zones yet is it China that says it's a single country so for national unity, there will be a single time zone rather than the 5? there would otherwise be hence and link between chronological time and the natural sunrise and sunset.

@goergia

Another one I have, is consciousness in the sperm or the egg?

So if in an alternate universe my mum had shagged a bloke other than my dad, but at the same time I was conceived in this universe (so the same egg), would the baby still be ‘me’ and have my consciousness?

Similarly, if my dad had slept with another women at the same time and the same sperm that resulted in me had fertilised another woman’s egg, would the baby be ‘me’?

I believe in something like soul contracts. So all of the significant people in our lives in this one are the significant people in our other lives/alternate universes etc.

But that means that in some lifetimes you could be your mums mum and she'd be your child lol

In addition to my last comment, what if both happened? Which baby would my consciousness go to?

If your consciousness is going to play the part of the babies... then your consciousness will go to both because all past lives, future lives, alternative realities apparently all happen at the same time!

My daughter was fascinated when she met her grandparents brothers and sisters, they have a big family on her dads side so she would have loads of second cousins etc. that she doesn't know...but she thought it was so weird that they had their only families, kids, and grandkids and it was like a whole other branch of the family all living a different life to her

Just rftt. The best MN thread for ages!

My contribution - how weird it is that we can be so close to someone in a relationship.

We share thoughts and plans, we talk for hours, have meals out, days out, walks hand in hand, play tennis, sunbathe, go skiing whatever. We share baths and beds and the most intimate of moments.

Yet, when that relationship breaks up, we have absolutely nothing to do with them. And after sharing all that stuff.

Blows my mind.

@DontStopMeNow7 - I've no idea if anyone has already said this, 7 pages to get though, but there's a kind of mouse they've discovered has periods like human women.

I think it's Australian, it's called a Spiny Mouse.

The fact that this was news worthy makes me think that it's the only other animal.

Gene Cernan, the last man to leave a footprint on the moon did so 50 years ago this year.

He died 5 years ago, in his eighties, within a couple of months of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth 60 years ago this year.

I also think about the relationship thing... I can be having really satisfying filthy sex with DH one moment and sitting having a cup of tea together later.

Sometimes I find it very hard to get my head around the fact that I won't ever see people who have died again. My mind just won't quite accept the absoluteness of death.

How many meaningless jobs there are. I don't mean menial jobs. I mean jobs that companies have made up just to make more money and keep the economy going.

I just can't fathom for example, that there's an entire industry just talking about what people are doing. (PR)

Thing that companies pay people to do blow my mind.