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.

@hihellohihello, I always wonder this when I look at Kate and William..do they ever order a Chinese takeaway and what do they have ??!

@Keladrythesaviour thank you for telling me that, I had no idea that it was called that, or anyone else had the same thoughts - I just secretly thought I was a bit of an idiot and haven’t spoken about it irl

A realisation really hit me this year. I have a life limiting illness that is progressing faster than expected. It's the realisation that I won't be able to end my life in the final months even though I'll be in pain, unable to swallow or ...well anything really. And that people will do everything possible to keep me alive when I'm dying. Like why? Why do we let humans die long drawn out inevitable deaths but we allow animals to be put to sleep if they are suffering.

@Rebeccasmoonnecklace I have that one often when looking at the moon closely. Everything sett egg ms so insignificant on a day to day level because WE ARE FLOATING IN SPACE!!!!!!

That absence really does make the heart grow fonder.Recently my family agreed that I am the most annoying.Probably good job we haven't spent too much time together during the marriage except for holidays.Even thinking of it retirement will also be spent with different interests and continued working part time which is ideal for us.

@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

No, same. In fact if I lay thinking about it I often start to slip into a panic attack, especially at night. The vastness of our universe just seems too much to comprehend.

@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.

Absolutely 100 per cent this!
I preferred being the old naive me!

@iloveeverykindofcat

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

Yes, this is a freaky one. Also that nothing has intrinsic value - it's just what people are prepared to pay for it. So that painting that cost £50 million is only worth that because someone was prepared to pay that for it. Similarly, houses, cars, clothes, etc - they're not actually WORTH that money, it's just that there is a market that supports that value for that item.

That adults don’t really have it all together, everyone is just winging it really.

Also that you don’t just suddenly feel like an adult. I don’t feel hugely different to when I was about 16.

Over my adult life I’ve often wondered why we work to pay for stuff,,work to pay for stuff we need to be part of the rat race. I often watch those Ben Fogle shows where individuals just opt out and feel nothing but admiration.

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.

It might sound odd, but I don't find that sad, I find it almost comforting. We stress and worry so much about all sorts of things, but in no time at all almost none of those things will matter.

That humans are the only mammals on the planet to have hair in the way that humans do. Luxuriant hair on our heads, for many anyway. Pubic and armpit hair and a dusting elsewhere. Why don't we have fur like the others?

I enjoy history and historical fiction, and it struck me that all the machinations and intrigues of say, Henry VIII, apart from the Big Things like reformation, amounted to nothing hundreds of year later. I always think that the poem, Ozymandias, encapsulates the idea so well.

@Doggirl

I've realised that in terraced houses you're actually sharing one building with lots of people

Sometimes more than others. Ex's friend worked in an estate agents in Newcastle. Apparently the terraces there often shared one loft space running the length . Nightmare for burglaries if the loft hatch in each wasn't secured.

They need to put in firewalls in that loft space. Without it, a fire starting in one property will run amok along the entire street.

How many people there are alive in the world today and there are 10 times that dead.. that is a lot of humans. And that the human race is completely replaced every 100 years, obviously but when you think of all the knowledge and how it is passed on, and what we must have lost

That by now (age 47) I would have some sort of clue about how the world works. Instead things are getting weirder and I don't understand how a lot of people (mostly politicians) can look at themselves in the mirror.

The vastness of our universe just seems too much to comprehend

There's a bit in Hitchhiker's Guide where Zaphod Beeblebrox is put into a machine that shows the universe and his place in it. It's supposed to show how tiny and insignificant he is and therefore send him mad, but he just laughs and says 'Hey, that's me!'. That story comforts me. Hey, I'm here!

I slowly came to the horrible realisation that some people, even serious academics in eminent institutions, will bend the facts, cherry pick the info and misquote what is said just to further their own argument or political beliefs.

It has massively shaken my faith in what I am told, and I now spend a lot of time going down rabbit holes and checking the sources.

It’s not just money that isn’t real though, countries, time (well any sort of measurement really) they’re just things we all join in agreeing that they mean something... but they’re all made up.

Whenever I go somewhere, abroad or in the UK, it blows my mind that people live there all the time. I thought about it a lot in lockdown, that all the places I’d visited also had people experiencing lockdown. I forget when I come home that those same people that served me in a shop or whatever are still there doing that now, because that’s where they live.

@Handyweatherstation

That humans are the only mammals on the planet to have hair in the way that humans do. Luxuriant hair on our heads, for many anyway. Pubic and armpit hair and a dusting elsewhere. Why don't we have fur like the others?

Makes you wonder about the theory that we were put on earth rather than evolved as we cannot survive in our terrian naturally.. like other animals. We are not evolved for our environments, how can that be?

That many people aren’t very nice. I prefer animals these days.

On the space theme, I always think it’s interesting that what we see as stars in the sky isn’t actually physical objects - rather just the light coming from the stars. They’re too far away to perceive the actually physical objects. How far? Well, travelling at the speed of a RyanAir trip to Spain, it would take about 5 million years to reach the nearest star to our Sun: our galactic next door neighbour. To reach our neighbouring galaxy in same plane would take approximately 600,000 times than long. That first 5 million years would in London Marathon terms not even qualify as a first step.

@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

I have these thoughts as well. Quite often I'll just zone out and think about that fact that we as humans are such teeny tiny (almost insignificant) beings in what is a universe so colossal and infinite that it isn't even really possible to evaluate or see in your minds eye. It wows me and makes me realise that certain trivial problems in life shouldn't really be fretted over!

ALSO thinking about how long the earth has been around and what things have been and gone on our planet earth over billions of years that we will never even know about. Humans are but a flash the pan. What will come after us? It fascinates me.

The enormity of deep time.

Example: Tyrannosaurus Rex lived in a time closer to our own (65 million years ago), than it did to Diplodocus (145 million years ago i.e. 80 million years before T-Rex).