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.

@pennywiselives

That the world doesn't revolve around me. I used to be so self conscious. Was obsessed with having my hair a certain way and not going out without make up and so on. Sometime during my late twenties/early thirties it just hit me that literally nobody gave a shit about me or what I look like. It was a very nice liberating feeling.

Also hotels have always blown my mind a little. All of those people with various lives and stories all in the same building doing different things. Crazy.

My father was always massively concerned about what the outside world would think of him. It affected every aspect of his life. It affected me hugely growing up. Its so daft. It took me until well into adulthood to realise that no-one cared . As long as I wasn't doing something anti social or illegal, that directly impacted them, they barely noticed me. I could wear what I wanted, do what I wanted,live as I wished because they didn't even notice and certainly didn't care. So much angst that didn't ever need to be felt.

From reading this thread.

People know chuff all about sheep - sheep are ornery little bastards, they do not just do what you want, that’s why you have to chase them with dogs.

Sheeple literally makes no sense.

@BorderlineHappy my DDad died when I was 15. I have been with DH 11 years and had 2 children with him, have known him about 13 years. In just 2 years time he would be in my life as much as my own Dad. I'm 35 and me and my best friend have known each other for 20 years! I do hope you don't get too sad at the thought of it- everyones existences are so different. I do get envious of people with excellent involved dads doing the gardening for them and kicking a ball around with their grandkids. I can imagine it's harder for you.

@MamaNeedsTea

That some people can just kill/hurt others without a second thought & it has no effect on them.

This more so since "murder documentaries" became a big thing on Netflix etc. For example, Richard Ramirez. The things he did to people, how the hell can someone be programmed like that & have the ability to hurt others. It's a scary thought that we're living amongst these people.

I read in the news yesterday of a house fire that has killed two children which was a arson attack, how do this people act normal after doing such dreadful things.

There are many, many psychopaths out there. Most dont murder but something clicks in some that causes them to kill.

Also, what we perceive to be a huge gap between a child and an old person isn't actually that big of a gap. That there isn't really such thing as old or young and that sense that they're so far apart because it happens in the blink of an eye & we are sharing the same space/time. Yet my grandparents' lives were so phenomenally different to my own just in the space of a few decades. How quickly things are evolving in terms of our lifestyle. All mad

That all your future plans mean nothing if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness. It doesn’t matter what plans you have for your future, places you want to go to, things you want to see/do, your retirement plans, they are suddenly irrelevant and there is nothing you can do about it. In the last two years I’ve seen three people die of cancer, all three happily married with children and aged just 38, 48 and 50.

Dreams. They’re just so odd and we have so little understanding of them.

Why do we have them, how do they help us, and what do they mean?

the water stays in one place pulled continuously towards the moon and the earth rotates under this fixed hump.

Oh yeah!

@TerraNovaTwo
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.

I think there are perhaps two reasons. First, we don’t make much effort to teach history chronologically. It’s all “this bit here for a term, then this bit there for a term”. Second, I think is the fact that British history is so messy. Loads of random people invading and then being invaded. Loads of random monarchs.

@MamaNeedsTea slight detour on the thread but I think Ted Bundy would be a better example for that one. He was a born psychopath. Ramirez was a sociopath who would possibly have had the opportunity to turn out differently if he'd had different childhood experiences. /removes true crime hat before this turns into a novel.

How we are forced to sit and watch as one country is being obliterated by another and there’s nothing anybody can do about it

A lot of you on this thread would know this stuff if you'd just studied basic science. I think the UK education system is so shit that huge parts of our population give up subjects at such a young age and reach adulthood without knowing how tides work or how evolution came about. Most other countries insist that everyone takes the basic set of subjects up until at least 16 so they don't grow up essentially ignorant of really fundamental things. I studied science as an adult, so I'm one of those people and now I know all this stuff I can't believe I went through so much of my life not knowing it.

As for what blows my mind - yeah the scope of the universe, the insignificance of planet Earth, the utter, total insignificance of almost every single one of us, that our lives are just the blink of an eye and when we're gone, most of us will be quickly forgotten, that in 100 years almost everyone who is alive now will be dead and a completely brand new set of people will inhabit the Earth.

Also the thing about the people in charge often don't know much more than the average person does. The rise of populism and rejection of expertise means that we often have people in really important jobs who don't know what the fuck they're doing. Reading about the Trump administration really brought this home to me - those people not only didn't know what they were doing - they didn't care to know. The depth of their ignorance and disinterest was terrifying and we could have them back again in 2024.

And yes, that a lot of adults with jobs and homes and families who are somehow able to make a decent living are really stupid. I'm no Einstein, but chatting to people at work or at the school gate the shit they think and believe and don't understand blows my mind - and not in a good way.

The space thing, yes. My tiny brain can't even start on it tbh.

That dogs just come to live with us and we kiss them and cuddle them and they couldn't survive without us

That millions of other lives exist around us and we don't really acknowledge the vastness of it all.

That a government is essentially more of a negative than a positive as they are basically out for themselves

That we aren't that different to previous generations and how western culture and ideas shapes us, not for the better, yet so many people drive themselves crazy seeking perfection in everything. I grew up with a DM like it and am striving to get as far away from it as possible.

Am reading Hunt. Gather. Parent. By Michaeleen Doucleff along with some of Sir Ken Robinsons books and they are changing my perspective on parenting for the better.

Love this thread

To realise in my forties that as a child I subconsciously thought that ‘battlefields’ were designated a fighting areas…
I suppose to be fair to my younger self, it has some logical merit, (football fields, rugby fields etc)

@Katkincake the tides thing! Mind blown. How have I got to 61, with an obsession for the sea AND the moon and not known that?

Mine is how dogs know a dog that looks more different from them than many other animals IS a dog. Eg how does a tiny pomeranian fluff ball know that a hulking great mastiff is one of it’s own, but a cat, little deer or lamb isn’t?

@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.

Nah it's not that. They have a clue. They're working towards a global goal they don't announce at every turn is all. What you believed was that the people in power had integrity and cared about our wellbeing.

[quote Amdone123]@OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow, I think this a lot. It fascinates me. I look at my granddaughter and think if my dh hadn't approached me over 30 years ago and asked if I fancied a game of tennis ( 🤣🤣), she would not be here. So, why is she here ? Was she meant to be ? As a pp said, why am I here ?
The other thing that I find weird is that in 100 years, none of us will be here, so all the minutiae we stress over, is completely pointless. None of it matters.
I've just read a thread about a young man dying too soon. Nothing, for his family and friends, will ever be the same again.
Basically, I refuse to sweat the small stuff.
Great thread, op. [/quote]
The randomness of meetings always comes into my head around A level results time. All those young people who had planned to go to one Uni that they aren't now going to. They get a place somewhere new and off they go. Had they gone to the original one they would have met other partners and had other children. Those children will never be born but completely new ones will be.
All because you got better/ worse resultsthan you expected. .

Probably quite depressing but after the death of my brother last year I realised that one day he existed, had loves and hates and so many wonderful thoughts. The next day all of that had gone. He wasn't a ghost or around me. He just suddenly stopped existing.

Everything to do with outer space both bores and terrifies me. I don't like to think about it, and even looking at the stars makes me uneasy.

That people with unbelievable wealth still do and have the same things as ordinary people. They sit in rooms, eat, sleep, wash, wear clothes, go to the toilet, go outside, exercise, travel in vehicles, talk to people - their versions of these things may be quite different but essentially they do and have the same things.

This is known as "Sonder" - the realisation that everyone around you has an independent life!

And the frightening thing is people who just don’t get this.

My ex husband didn’t. People purely existed for his purpose. He had no notion that people had their own lives and thoughts. If you didn’t have a use for him at that time, then you were in a state of stasis.

He used to be incandescent with rage that a friend he would pick up and put down for years at a time would have moved on, got married, changed jobs etc in the years he’d not spoken to them. He couldn’t understand why they hadn’t stayed exactly the same as the last time he saw them - like he’d lost some sort of control over them. It was so odd.

The fact that gravity keeps us ' grounded ' so to speak ( unless we are in an airplane or something similar and how they they stay up in the air is a thing of wonder !)
The universe is so big and I doubt we are the only intelligent life. Other milky ways may well have a similar set up to us and other earths.
What happens when we die also fascinates me too.
So much to wonder about life in general and so much I don't understand too.

All it would take to die is for one small orifice to be temporarily blocked for a fraction too long.
Considering we push food, drink, saliva and air down the same opening, we can voluntarily hold our breath for a period of time, this makes me think how vulnerable we are.
This terrifies me.

Processed and ultra processed food is literally addictive, and is probably a huge factor that drives people to regain any weight they have lost.
I think of processed food as I think of alcohol. A little in moderation is fine and doesnt necessarily lead to alcoholism, but there is always that risk.
I cannot get my head around why anyone who is aware of the addictive nature of certain things would be only too happy to supply their children with these things or consume them regularly themselves.
Controversial I know.

Also, blows my mind how many people dont forward think at all, have no common sense, or just go along with the masses and dont think for themselves.
People who literally cannot organise themselves, their finances or their lives.

Last one, how many people are suffering with poor health today when we are more medically advanced and better educated than we ever have been in history to our knowledge. Yet the vast majority of people know at least one person, usually multiple people, in their immediate family or friendship circle who are in poor health, either physically or mentally.

[quote partystress]@Katkincake the tides thing! Mind blown. How have I got to 61, with an obsession for the sea AND the moon and not known that?

Mine is how dogs know a dog that looks more different from them than many other animals IS a dog. Eg how does a tiny pomeranian fluff ball know that a hulking great mastiff is one of it’s own, but a cat, little deer or lamb isn’t?[/quote]
Scent, body language... but also, sometimes they don’t. Large dogs will sometimes hunt small ones and retired racing greyhound often seem to only recognise other greyhounds as like them because that’s all they’ve seen for years.

@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.

So much this! The realisation over the last two years that the people making life or death decisions in a crisis, are just a bunch of ordinary blokes, who through an accident of birth, and some self promotion, got put in charge. No different from the ordinary middle aged men I work with, with all their faults, failings and inadequacies. Like you, I think I always had the notion of some much cleverer than the rest of us people who could keep us from harm. Embarrassed by that now.