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.

@Pinklimey

I spent all of my childhood and teen years being told I look really English. Now Inlive in a different part of the country and am an adult, I look foreign. All of my boring features, like brown hair and brown eyes aren't English enough cheers politicians for that referendum

I'm similar, how do I look English here, but as soon as I go to an European country people assume I'm German?

It's happened on numerous trips with both family and friends, people know immediately they're English but think I'm German and ask "How do you know the German lady?"

@Bogeyes

That many adults are stupid

This to an extent. I think as children we are conditioned to 'respect our elders' and that 'adults know best'. As an adult it's come as a real shock how many people don't know anything past what they are taught by older generations/who they mix with in life.

The realisation that out lives are built on desire and acquisition. We are conditioned to want things and then have to work to acquire those things. Most of those things are meaningless when you look at the things you really need to live.

Do I really need make-up or jewellery or the latest fashion or those shoes that I saw and feel that I must have. Will they truly make me happy like I think they will?

On entering a Charity Shop, I always think that all these things were really wanted at one time and now they have been discarded.

Suddenly on reaching middle life I've realised that if I want less that I can work less and make my life less stressful.

That nobody really knows anybody. We are all living secret lives inside our heads.

The realisation that so many people around us are stupid. I know this makes me sounds horrible but I assure you I treat everyone with the same respect. But I am educated to a high level and find it so difficult to find people to have a good conversation with. Most people talk abou trivial subjects that bore me beyond belief.

I’m not sure if it’s just about education though - I’m educated to postgrad level and know a lot of stuff, but although I have the same thing with not being able to have a fully free-ranging conversation with many people, education doesn’t seem to be the main thing. People can be less educated and be very intelligent and articulate and thoughtful- and vice versa.

Plus people often seem surprised when they get to know me and find I’m “brainy”. I’m shy and tend ho hold back - so maybe others are doing that too.

One reason I love MN, you can always have an intelligent conversation!

I've always struggled to comprehend that people have different levels of intelligence.

That two people can put the same amount of effort in and the outcomes can be vastly different due to the fact that our brains are different.

I also feel sad that as you get older you know you can't achieve everything. Someone upthread spoke about all of the books that they will not read for me it is all of the countries that I won't visit and cultures that I won't experience. Through the eyes of a child this is inconceivable but by mid 40s you realise that time is most definitely finite.

@lifeturnsonadime

That was the first topic I ever studied as part of my psychology degree. Nature/nurture. A lot is most certainly inherited.

One reason I love MN, you can always have an intelligent conversation!

Amen to that! It's why I spend an embarrassing amount of time on here. It's nice to have interesting, intelligent conversations with someone other than dh and my dc sometimes. I am very much lacking like-minded local friends.

First time when you actually die.. second time when your name is uttered for the last time

That's a sobering thought

For 50 years I have assumed that anything I do that is obvious and easy and interesting to me is a worthless skill because everyone else must be able to do it easily too.

I don't know why I didn't realise this - I envy people who do some things better than me, so why didn't I see that my complex, logical, creative mind is also to be prized - and people might envy me for it?

It was a revelation to me because my friend is a nurse and I totally admire her ease of interacting with people, knowing what to say, and caring for people so well. I could never learn her skills in million years. She also could not do what I do.

Revel in your own skills.

@RachaelN

The realisation that so many people around us are stupid. I know this makes me sounds horrible but I assure you I treat everyone with the same respect. But I am educated to a high level and find it so difficult to find people to have a good conversation with. Most people talk abou trivial subjects that bore me beyond belief.

This always makes me feel uncomfortable as all people excel in some things and don't in others. My mechanic has barely any literacy (I often have to spell simple words for him when he's preparing my paper bill) but he's a genius when it comes to cars.

@Comedycook

First time when you actually die.. second time when your name is uttered for the last time

That's a sobering thought

I must be the odd one out then because I find the fact that one day we will cease to exist in physical form and in people’s memories is quite comforting. It sounds a bit wanky but I marvel at the ‘circle of life’ and feel privileged to be part of it. I love sitting under trees that were there before I was born and will be there long after I die. I love looking at my daughter and thinking about how she has her whole life ahead of her, with me as a (hopefully) wiser figure. I find history very interesting and enjoy that one day we will be part of that history.

Another thought I get (and I don’t know if anyone will be able to follow this as I can’t adequately explain what I mean), is that we don’t ‘remember’ the length of time from before we were born. So does that mean very elderly people’s mental timelines run concurrently to ours? Does that make sense to anyone?

I love to think about our unbroken mother to daughter heritage. That unchanging link to our ancestors is wonderful. My mitochondrial DNA will cease with my grandsons, so my great grandchildren will come from another female line.

I was thinking about this when I realised that actually, that mitochondrial DNA will be passed down by my female cousin's daughters, so it is not lost! We all got it from our grandmother, she got it from her grandmother etc. Our grandmother's mum came to England from Nova Scotia, so her sisters will hopefully have passed it on to many daughters there. Their own mother was an immigrant from Ireland, so her sisters who stayed will have passed it down to present day Irish people.

So many connections! It's like lighting lots of candles from one flame.

I once saw a human nervous system - I think it was in the science museum in Boston, and I don’t remember whether it was real or a model.

In walking up to it, I initially thought it was some kind of sea creature. It looked a bit like an octopus, or a jelly fish, or something similar.

The realisation that this was the source of everything that made a person feel and experience the world totally blew me away.

Ever since then I have had the slightly disturbing feeling that everything that surrounds the nervous system, the flesh and bones and organs, are just a life-support system for it. That human bodies are like space-suits for the alien-octopus-like nervous system that lives inside

Crap Blert you’re right!! 😱

@kennycat

That we are all totally the same. If you watch, say, the news on mute, all the people could be anywhere. The Ukrainians being displaced are actual people with houses like ours. They aren’t poor shanty town people but people who lived just like us. They had grass in their gardens and pasta in their kitchens just like us. Same for anyone else in the news really. They all take the piss out of their daily family members and have tummy ache occasionally like we do. We are all just people. Ordinary people. Even Kate Middleton who I adore and worship!!

Why do you adore and worship Kate Middleton?! Bit weird.

@Organictangerine

Crap Blert you’re right!! 😱

Yes! That was it!

And really, if that is everything that thinks and feels, then that is the person, and everything else is just a “spacesuit” or protective cushioning for it.

@Darlingx

TaraRhu

I am amazed that at the tip people throw a ceramic sink or a glass cabinet into a skip from a height until its broken when someone in need would be crying out for that object and all the time and making of said object. That food just gets thrown or to rot yet people are going hungry it just confuses me the logic of it especially that in supermarkets meat and fish get thrown away. That we overproduce to throw away what were living beings and that we would rather have volume versus better standards and that this is just generally accepted as the norm that there will be waste in order to have more choice.

My ex used to work at a tip and when he started they would quite often take things for home (they weren't supposed to sell things) then they were told they were not allowed to and with valuable items they were to break them to prevent theft. The amount of times that he saw as new items that were worth more than he got paid in a few months was a source of constant amazement to him. Pretty much all the staff walked out when they were told to start dismantling bikes, electronics and smashing what could be smashed.

I still don't understand why they changed that I mean who cares if someone makes use of something that someone else couldn't be bothered to sell.

@ThursdayAddams

Mine is that at some point you did something for the last time and didn't realise it.

Like going out to play with your friends after school.

Rode a bike like Elliott from ET

Used dial up

Gave someone a hug - a school friend , someone who's died...

Would we be more conscious of these moments if we knew they were the last time. Does that make sense?!

@ThursdayAddams yes. I've often wondered when the last time I picked my children up was and/or carried them.

I recently read (I think it was in the New Scientist) that female elephants in Africa evolved to not grow tusks due to ivory poaching (male elephants couldn’t do this because the genome mutation it requires would abort them in utero). … like HOw?! WT-actual-F?! 🤯

@CrankyFrankie

I recently read (I think it was in the New Scientist) that female elephants in Africa evolved to not grow tusks due to ivory poaching (male elephants couldn’t do this because the genome mutation it requires would abort them in utero). … like HOw?! WT-actual-F?! 🤯

Haven't read the piece, but it's not like a deliberate choice or plan was made by the elephants, but simply that a random mutation that caused an elephant not to have tusks would enhance the survival of that particular elephant. It wouldn't be killed by poachers and would go on to have more offspring than an elephant with tusks. In this way the mutation would spread and become dominant. Survival of the Fittest.

Could be wrong but that image might under-represent the contribution of the GIT/the ENS to the person/the nervous system.

@CloudPop i picked up my enormously tall 8 yr old for a cuddle when he was sad last weekend, I had to immediately abort the mission and cuddle him on the ground.

Something obvious that I find really difficult to comprehend is how every person who has ever lived on Earth since the beginning of human civilisation is still on Earth in some form (bones, atoms etc) and will never leave, so we are still sharing the Earth with people who lived thousands of years ago - mind blowing!