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.

The fact that our faces are just a collection of organs...noses positioned above mouths to smell food and take in oxygen, eyes on top, sometimes I get a glimpse/sense of what we might look like to an alien with limbs writhing around and mouths full of teeth and it's very weird, then it snaps back to normality

That people who lived thousands of years ago like in Pompei, had highly evolved societies, just like us. They imported goods from far away, travelled, had a neighborhood, families . They looked like us , lived and died like us . That nothing essential has changed on humans for thousands of years.

Another one here baffled by the size of space. I can't even comprehend how far it is to our own moon and the thought of the size of the universe - which is expanding - just blows my tiny, insignificant little mind. What the hell is it even expanding into? It can't be nothingness because surely that doesn't exist? Or is it sort of 'blending' with another universe and if so, how does it differ from this one? How many universes are there and why? What's beyond them? Whilst being far too massive for comprehension, I know none of these questions will ever be answered in my lifetime and in all probability, will never be answered 'correctly' whilst humanity exists on Earth. We will die out not knowing the answers to life's biggest mysteries.

Why are NHS nurses paid a fraction more than supermarket workers when they've done years of studying and training and have 100 times the responsibility and stress? They literally keep people alive and ensure those at the end of their lives let go as peacefully and as pain-free as possible. I'm not a nurse but did used to work in a supermarket. I'll never understand that.

I can't comprehend how millions of humans have died over the course of time and yet nobody living, regardless of religion, beliefs or spirituality, actually knows what happens when/after we die. Do we have souls? Do they leave our bodies and if so, where do they go and what happens to them? Do we as an entity just cease to exist? Or does something else happen that nobody has ever even considered?

Christ almighty, this is some deep shit for a Thursday morning!

Growing up English with a Scottish Dad, as a child I didn't realise he HAD an accent, if you see what I mean. Only when I was older, chatting on the phone, did I hear him as others did. And he was from Glasgow

@dipdye the food thing relates to environment so Northern Europe, plentiful forests and mammals so no shortage of fuel for fires and meat v Japan, limited landmass with few forests (compared to Europe) and island nation so fish/seaweed and quick cooking, or indeed no cooking useful.

That if I hadn’t gone to a certain place on a certain day I might not have met my dh and therefore my kids,as they are now, wouldn’t have existed. And in fact, if I hadn’t conceived on the day I did, it wouldn’t be them. Or if a different sperm had got to my egg, it wouldn’t be them.
Someone mentioned food up thread, my dh always says “it was a brave man that first ate an oyster”

@Stillfunny

That people who lived thousands of years ago like in Pompei, had highly evolved societies, just like us. They imported goods from far away, travelled, had a neighborhood, families . They looked like us , lived and died like us . That nothing essential has changed on humans for thousands of years.

Have you seen the tavern graffiti from Pompei? It's SO recognizable. In modern slang it translates to things like 'X and Y were here, bffs forever', 'Z is hot', 'This person does [humiliating sexual acts' and right up high in a corner some wit has written 'This was hard to write'.

All the psychology experiments which reveal we're all just messed up, selfish arrogant etc. Are most of us like that really? Is morality just due to fear of getting caught, punished or judged?
Also the fact that it just takes one charismatic leader and some dire economic situation to make one group of people hate and target another. I began to feel the start of that in 2007 when Islamaphobia really ramped up.

@iloveeverykindofcat hilarious! That's made my day

Why am I me? I remember first having this thought when I was 12.

And religious belief is not the answer to that question for me.

That everything we make on this planet, is made from materials found on this planet. Even plastic, we see plastic as being the root of all evil, but it's still made up from minerals and materials that came from earth

@DontStopMeNow7 perception of time does speed up as you get older I’m sure they did some experiments and laid out the below as an explanation, still blows my mind!

If a 5 year old is thinking about 1 year that’s 20% of their whole life.

If a 50 year old is thinking about 1 year thats 2% of their whole life.

So if that’s true then a 5 years perception of 1 years is the same as a 50 years olds 10 years 🤯🤯🤯

@likemindedarseholes I read those in a book years ago, but there's plenty more here kashgar.com.au/blogs/history/the-bawdy-graffiti-of-pompeii-and-herculaneu

Kissing is weird. Who thought about putting 2 sets of lips together, why do f we smog with elbows or hands?

Everything is made up of atoms, we can’t see them but then material, wood, humans, water, food all made of atoms.

@likemindedarseholes . Exactly ! Just the same as us .

@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.

This just freaked me out. I had never even thought about how tides work. Properly weird feeling going on inside me now.

Anyway, I look at the stars at night, not in a meaningful astrological way and cannot find the constellations that are apparently there.
I could probably look at a bunch of stars and see every constellation in them. I dont know who determines which stars are part of a constellation or why. What happens to the minor stars in and surrounding each constellation, why are they not deemed good enough to be a part?

95% of the human population are sheep and just follow whatever they're told to do.

Who first tried cow's milk?

Twice my body grew a whole person, and an organ to support that new life. And to get that life out of a very small hole, my coccyx softened and flipped back, whilst other parts of my body stretched and reshaped.

I find the human body amazing when you look at all the things it can do to sustain life.

@fluffythedragonslayer

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.

Not everyone who "goes mad" knows they are. So many are completely unaware of it.

In 2008 I experienced something so deep traumatic that I suffered a psychotic breakdown. The things which were real to me were not reality for anyone else. Nobody experienced my experiences, and yet everyone was telling me I was seriously ill but they didn't see what I saw, feel what I felt, have the fears I had etc. At the time I felt like they just weren't listening to me or believing what I was believing and absolutely couldn't see my point of view. It was all so real to me that for many many months, it WAS my reality because I couldn't see any different. I'm 'well' now in that I no longer have that mindset but I never fully recovered and likely never will. The only 'label' we have for it now is PTSD.

Maybe not quite the thing you're after, but I always wonder how things like bread evolved - I mean who sat there and thought "if I crush the grain from this grass, I'll get this white stuff. I can mix it with water, put a bit of this manky looking fungus in it, and it will make it puff up and then I can put it in/on the fire and it will make something really tasty." I do understand the process evolved over time and wasn't just one person - it just amazes me.

One day I will die

@Rebeccasmoonnecklace

It always freaks me out to see Earth on the television as it makes me remember that we are inhabitants of a planet which is moving around within a galaxy. It’s almost too much information for my mind to compute, my DH thinks I’m weird for thinking this way and writing this down has made me hope I’m not the only one who feels this way

Yep. I have this realisation too. Regularly. Add to it that we don't know if we're alone in the galaxy or galaxies but if we are, isn't it an awful waste of space??? Coupled with that realisation, we have humans on this tiny blue marble that floats around in space thinking that they have the right to kill other humans, just because they want to or that they have the right to take that person's land, just because they want to. We're a terribly arrogant species, for all the developing we've done over the years, we're still so terribly arrogant!

Lying in the sun, watching the clouds, and suddenly getting vertigo and the feeling I'm going to fall off the planet.

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.