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.

Walking pass strangers - you'll never see again in your lifetime.

I’ve never personally seen a bleeding animal or one that’s wearing a sanitary pad. you've never realised a female dog bleeds when on heat? You can also get period pants for dogs.

Had to remind myself the other day that the moon doesn't shine, and that when we see it all bright in the night sky, it's the sun giving it that effect.

@DontStopMeNow7

Thinking about how insignificant we all are as part of just one planet in the whole universe. I get freaked out wondering if we are really the only intelligent life in the universe (rare earth theory) because that’s so eerie; but equally freaked out that we might not be - plus frustrated that I will never meet an alien. Plus all the stuff about space generally and my annoyance that I’m reduced to worrying about just putting food on the table.

I’ve lived in the same cul-de-sac for 17 years and have barely spoken to any of my neighbours.

Had to distance myself from family because they are dysfunctional and potentially controlling towards me specifically. My mind finds it hard to compute the lack of self awareness required and the compulsion to be this way.

Just how much time it takes in a week to pay for and maintain a home to live in, and as a result I only have a few hours per week to actually enjoy time in said home.

Remembering the pre-mobile phone and pre-internet, pre-social media age. I can’t fully remember how that worked but I’m pretty sure it was a happier time in many ways.

How did cats and dogs evolve to be domesticated? I don’t get it.

Having sex with someone who, if you don’t stay together, you may one day pass them in the street and not talk, as if it never happened (?)

Sleeping is weird. Most of us do it all at the same time so half the world is basically inactive and doing nothing at any one time. Periods are weird. Did the timing of the menstrual cycle evolve with us and/or did the lunar cycle play a part? (And does it still because that might explain a lot). Do other mammals get periods? I’ve never personally seen a bleeding animal or one that’s wearing a sanitary pad. Am I moody with pms because my hormones are causing me to be that way or is it because I feel like shit?

My brain still can’t compute how countries came to be /evolved, and aside from when we have wars, we don’t think about it. We just accept borders etc.

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.

Perception of time I swear literally speeds up the older I get. I know I won’t be alive forever yet I still frequently waste time.

I think too much. Most people who “know” me really don’t, because they don’t know even a tiny fraction of what goes on in my mind.

Regarding the menstruation question, I read this really interesting article the other day, the part about menstruation starts at the 7th paragraph: www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/10/will-we-soon-be-able-to-fix-periods

In short, most animals don't menstruate. We (and a tiny mouse) are unusual. How annoying!!!

@dipdye

How the heck did all these languages evolve?!?

And how different cultures have different foods? Japanese vs French for example? Why weren't they eating raw fish in the Mediterranean? I know they had ceviche but not on the same level as Japan?

I think the food thing depends on local resources and then changes when other ingredients / cultures interact.

There is one group of Maori people who cook using hot springs, something you can only do when you live near hot springs.

You can divide the world into thirds of how people eat, 1/3 use a knife and fork, 1/3 chopsticks and 1/3 hands.

Obviously this is when eating traditional food so I may well use chopsticks but not to eat egg and chips.

Japan has a lot of people, earthquakes and little land suitable to raise animals, so rice is an obvious choice to base meals on, Japanese culture places a lot of emphasis on beauty and the 'right' way to do things so a food that incorporates rice and other foods to make them look beautiful is an expression of that culture.

Northern Europe tends to do more 'pile it high' foods.

Although I know this I find it hard to believe that potatoes are a recent addition to European food.

Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I never tasted a potato.

As a second generation 'British expat', now living in the UK, it always stuns me not just how many ordinary Brits are ignorant or indifferent to British history but also how blank the seemingly educated are on it.

When I first met my now DH he had a Suffolk accent, now I don't notice it at all. I could only understand about half what my MIL said in her much stronger accent, and really had to get my ear in. I'm only from Essex!

Also, on accents, I was an adult before I realised what a true Essex country accent was - it was much closer to a Suffolk accent in the older generation. TV, better travel and post war regeneration mean it is now (and was when I was a child too) much more like what you hear on EastEnders.

Wrt colour, DH is colour blind - reds and greens he sees as similar. That completely blows my mind.

I always feel weird realising that our whole self and happiness is built on expectation and familiarity. I look at other people and think how can they not be totally lost and depressed living in their house and with their lives, not having my children but having strange (to me) children, it’s all so unfamiliar to me I can’t imagine coping with having their life.

I find it hard (and sad) to get my head around that one day we just die and that's it. Years and years will pass and most of us will be forgotten about.
Sometimes I think of that in bed before sleep and have to quickly change my mind to a happier thought otherwise I'll end up down a rabbit hole lol.

A bit like the "grown ups won't save us" one, as a child I used to be really scared of "going mad" but would tell myself that if I felt it happening I'd tell a doctor and they'd help, so it would be fine. The realisation that this is not true, for many reasons, was horrible - stretched mental health services, HCPs who don't care, the very fact that "going mad" (my childhood phrase, not wishing to be offensive) can actually mean seeking help is frightening and difficult, and that help doesn't always, well, help... It's been a shitty revelation to me. I often think back to little me telling myself it would be fine, someone will help, and it makes me kinda sad.

@MBM18

I find it hard (and sad) to get my head around that one day we just die and that's it. Years and years will pass and most of us will be forgotten about. Sometimes I think of that in bed before sleep and have to quickly change my mind to a happier thought otherwise I'll end up down a rabbit hole lol.

And how short life actually is.

All the stuff we eat now someone once tried to see if it was ok to eat. Like. No one knew if apples were poisonous so they gave it a go and discovered they weren’t. (Minor but boggles my mind. 😬)

@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.

This only hit me at the start of the pandemic. Somehow, I've always thought that the 'grown ups' in charge knew what they were doing. No I've realised they're just muddling along, the same as the rest of us and it's really quite scary!

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.

Money isn't real. I mean I always knew this but every so often I remember it all over again.

@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!

@pussycatunpickingcrossesagain you know they have been back a few times though?

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_the_Moon

Physiological functions blow my mind. The thought that I breathe to keep myself alive and it just happens. I’m not aware I’m doing it but my body makes my respiration system work; even when I’m asleep. It’s too much for my brain to comprehend.

@MBM18 I used to get that. But then a few years ago I died (and got revived, obviously) and now I'm not worried about it at all. There's nothing to fear. You won't be there. Just like before you were born.

That people generally don’t have thoughts or say things based on real logic all of their own. People generally hold beliefs because they are popular and they hear lots of others say things on subjects and they just go along with it even if it doesn’t really make logical sense. Basically people are ‘told’ what to think and feel about things according to their geographical and historical place in time.

That everyone is just attempting to create a 'life' around themselves. No matter where you go, especially in more 'developed' countries, all life is is a series of work, meeting new people to make friends, hobbies, family etc etc. but at the end of the day it is all the same thing, just in different formats. I feel like the less you have, the more genuine life is? As if the ease of living in a developed country lends itself to the feeling that our lives are artificial. I've especially noticed this when moving to a new city, where you have to 'start again' but it's just the same building blocks of what life is.

How much of an accident our whole existence is and how our world is ruled by the eleptical orbit of the earth around the Sun, the pull of the moon and the tilt and spin of our planet. The seasons, the years, the months, the days.

That for millions and millions of people on our planet it's not 2022 because they live by a different calendar. Our calendar has to be adjusted every now and then because the earth's orbit isn't precisely one year. Also it should be 13 28 day months but for some reason we all mistrust the number 13.

That if there was no electricity, apparently women would be at our most fertile when there was the most light - full moon, and get our periods at the new moon.

That when the history we're taught speaks of great discoveries and "firsts", they're just discoveries and firsts for European men. Oftentimes, these new wonders were common knowledge for other cultures, and sometimes even for European women!

Every now and then I get a little overwhelmed by the thought that we are simply monkies that broke the balance in nature and are breeding out of control, consuming everything in our path. We practice "population control" on other species that hint at doing the same.

@MuchTooTired

A weird one I realised the other day is that people I see whilst out and about have whole actual lives. There’s a woman I see on the school run, every school day I drive past her in the morning, we smile at each other, then do the same in the afternoon. I saw her the other day in b&q and it completely threw me - it wasn’t a school day and she was there with her mum and blanked me.

Obviously I know everyone I see has a whole life just like I do, but it made me think about how many people there are, with lives that I know nothing about all over the world. I guess I’ve not matured past the kid in school who doesn’t realise the teacher doesn’t live there permanently until the next school day

I remember having a similar realisation when I was about 11 years old. I was sitting on a train going to see my grandparents in the school holidays and whizzing past all the terraced houses and as it was near Christmas I noticed that I could see Christmas trees through most of the windows. The realisation hit that on Christmas Day it would be Christmas for everybody (well, everybody that celebrates it) hit and it was the weirdest feeling. I’d always ‘known’ that, but it suddenly seemed unbelievably enormous because these people on all of these anonymous houses and the people who lived behind them, and the people on the street after than and so on and so on would also have Christmas. My mind was blown.

That the people we elect to serve us don’t have our best interests at heart.

My one is basically similar to the Grandfather paradox. It blows my mind that, had the people who are your (let’s say) your great-great grandparents hadn’t met, you wouldn’t be here. For me, my maternal grandparents met in the line at a cinema. My grandmother was waiting and my grandpa was walking by, stopped to tie his shoe and they got chatting. Had to not gone out/not walked past the line/his lace not come undone etc, maybe they wouldn’t have met, had three kids and I definitely wouldn’t be here. Crazy!