Same, not recent but I have a long list of eye opening facts I’ve collected throughout my life. Eventually you just accept it all. It’s not been easy to get to this point, it took a lot of mental anguish to get this numb to it all.
People die unexpectedly. Tell anyone and everyone that you love verbally that you love them (even if it’s man to man). Don’t leave anyone guessing as to how you felt about them.
Not everyone is a friend for life, even if you’ve been friends for 5/10/20/40/80 years.
People change and you can’t control that.
Recording the people you love speaking; preferably while you ask them about their lives. See #1
Not on that level but I’ve lost a friend because we were both a little stubborn. I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t handle the situation well (granted, we were all drunk).
But, that friend also needs to acknowledge that they too did not handle what happened in the best way and not double down by threatening to sue other friends that were at the event for a orior year’s issue.
It’s a giant mess. The last thing I told them ~2.6 years ago was that this didn’t have to be a friendship ending event. And here we are; haven’t spoken since then. Some days I miss them and other days I wonder if I’m better off without them and the energy they bring.
probably that the majority of people are self serving and extremely fake. it's pretty insane how many "activists" there are that hate the people they supposedly want to protect.
That happens because it's a social act. People who don't want to, but have to due to some sort of obligation or as an indirect action towards achieving something else.
Activism is a chore they have to do, so without people in charge sincere in what they do and aware of this type of obligation, any attempt at serious activism will end up half-baked and likely to do more harm than good.
It's tough to find people who do something for the sake of it and not as a springboard meant to pursue other interests.
Good observation. At least with some of the more rational Republicans that I have conversed with over the years in the US, that has been one of their complaints with people on the left. That is where some of them come up with “nanny state” (setting aside that they have dozens of other ways they would love to create a nanny state themselves).
That an unfortunately large portion of my family are stupid MAGA’ts. I always knew they weren’t exactly tip top in the faculties department but they usually had the right directions. That’s shits completely gone now. Sort of in relation to that. Just how dumb the average level is. The lack of troubleshooting capabilities, the disregard of knowledge, the irrational hate for the ‘other’ the just complete contempt for anyone who doesn’t directly effect you day to day. The schdenfraude from the faceless trump voters is a nice trickle but it’s becoming maddening how much of it there is. I’m finally beginning to understand the need for so much history in school. Unfortunately there is an uncomfortably large portion of the population that simply can’t learn from words and can only understand experience. It almost feels like a hidden great filter.
It is very hard and sad, knowing my house has no easily consumed chocolate.
I could make some chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies but that would take awhile... why can't chocolate just appear next to me right next to my drink! Alas.
It's been 9 years, I'm married again (happily), and my ex-wife is never coming back.
It's difficult to go from best friends who tell eachother everything, to strangers.
It took a lot of therapy for me to realize that we both played a part in our marriage ending, and it wasn't all my fault. But, I also learned in the process that my childhood really screwed me up, and I needed to deal with it, and reconcile with the fact that I didn't have a loving childhood. The abuse, both verbal, physical, and sexual has had a lasting effect on me as an adult.
But, most importantly, I learned that I can heal from all of it, and grow as a person.
I think she's happy now, and so am I. So even though I still miss her once im a while, I know things worked out for the best.
not to sound corny, but becoming self aware of who I am a couple of years ago and identifying the best path forward. since then, my life has been so much better.
its really hard to admit to yourself what your faults are, but once you do, the next steps should work on how to fix the problem and not beat yourself up over it. I'm not exagerating when I say I've never been happier.
i'm convinced that calling it misinformation is part of the problem.
misinformation is the proper word for it, but the word carries with it the connotation that it's intentional or ill willed; so misinformation that doesn't seem to have either are given a pass.
for example: take the piece of misinformation that you shouldn't go swimming 30 minutes after you've eaten; it's misinformation like any other but allowed to perpetuate because it doesn't seem ill willed or intentional.
that means that any misinformation that seems innocent is allowed to perpetuate and that's how propaganda takes hold; repeat it enough times and it seems like an established & unquestionable fact and, therefore, innocent, so it flies under the rather and keeps getting perpetuated as fact like the misinformation with swimming & eating
Realizing that I'll never be able to achieve any of my previous hopes or "dreams", it's too late, and that life is fundamentally uneven and unfair.
Similarly, realizing there's no sense of "karma" or balance in real life, it's just a crutch that people can use to justify or rationalize things.
Loss of friendships can be the result of very minor events that triggered someone or were not communicated well. This does not mean that anyone is necessarily “bad” or lacks care for the world. That can be true but it is not always true. The hardest thing to come to terms with is that despite the above in many cases there is no way back to friendship with that person
Knowing the people who I ideally want to date or would have a better chance of dating, will forever be out of my reach because of missed opportunities in the past. For example, there's a couple of friends I know I would've loved to date. One of them I could've had but nobody said anything to eachother and it had been 14 years ago when that chance came and went. We just mesh well together and can go the distance when it comes to conversing and getting along. But, I'm forever friend-zoned because nobody said anything when emotions were high back then.
And another thing is accepting the fact that you aren't as compatible with some of your friends when you thought you were. The painful part is realizing this after so long. I had a massive friend exodus last year. I've lost friends whom I've been with for 15 years, 10 years, 5 years and 3 years in that order. And it was simply because at somepoint, we just ignored the part where we weren't as heavily compatible as we once were. And it showed the more times we were at odds with eachother. Hell, I lost another friend this year who I had hit it off well for 3 going 4 years and it's the same example.
I have ADHD and I think the hardest part about living with it is coming to terms to the fact that I'll have to constantly put in more effort to meet the neurotypical standards for school and work. It's exhausting to have to mange my symptoms in a world where every task throughout my day is designed to be preformed within a set time frame and getting off-track, even for a little while, even if it's unintentional is seen as incompetence. I struggle to be able to let myself relax especially when I'm overstimulated due to this. Luckily, my country is pretty progressive and workplaces are schools are required to provide accommodations but unfortunately, that doesn't mean that everyone will take my needs seriously.
He had the same realization, so he went to trade school to avoid the parts of education that involved a lot of studying in the traditional sense. So he ended up as a decent welder.
Fast forward a few "normal" jobs where he couldn't quite fit because of the everyday drudgery of working either as a maintenance man or a factory worker, doing the same things over and over: He ended up applying to a job where the tag line was basically "no days are the same"
He started working with sea fastening. You know those ships with a large superstructure in front of a completely flat back deck? His employer was in charge of all sorts of fittings and welds onboard ships so that containerized systems could be easily mounted in a secure manner.
And said company was usually contracted by my former AND current employer to do the sea fastening aspect of mobilization.
And yes, Kevin is a real person. And as soon as I see his name on the personnel list, I know it's all going to go well and be a lot of fun while we're at it. Kevin and I have been drunk on all continents together. (Well, except from Antarctica... so far). Be it occupying a Texas BBQ joint for an entire day while doing the layout planning from there, or chilling (literally) in a Singapore pool after a long days work.
Oh yes, ADHD.... he mentioned that he probably wouldn't have ended up where he was without it. I'm not saying his situation is universally transferable, but it's all about finding ones element.
His only ADHD-related failing that I've noticed is that he usually struggles with airports. But that's fine - we usually park our asses in a quiet airport lounge anyway.
I'm looking into doing something similar to Kevin, I want a job that's more flexible but I'm worried that jobs like that won't pay great. I settled on becoming an ultrasound tech because the college program incorporates a lot of hands on training, considering it's in the medical field it's a well paying and secure job. But, I do wonder if it's truly right more me sometimes...
I suffer from combined anxiety, agoraphobia, and panic attacks. Going for a walk is a nice and relaxing thing for most people, but for me it's a battle from start to finish. I can't be too far from a "safe" place, like my house or my car, or I begin to have panic attacks.
I've had to come to terms with the fact that the outdoors are difficult for me and I have to constantly go against my instincts and force myself outside.
That I will never, no matter what I do or how hard I try, be cis. I will have to go through stuff cis women would never even think about. I saw a great video on YouTube about this but I can't find it right now.
That I was being complacent to support animal cruelty just because I liked egg salad and cream cheese.
I was vegetarian for 7 years. I thought that only obvious things like meat and leather involved animal cruelty.
I was very wrong. And when people showed me I was wrong, I took a good while to process it. “But the cow needs to be alive for milk. But the chicken needs to be alive for eggs. Surely it’s not THAT bad”.
It’s a lot worse than that bad. Once it fully got through my skull just what kind of cruel practices were involved, not by choice l, but by industry NECESSITY, with the animal products that felt safe, I broke down crying while I was trying to reconcile the fact that I was letting my taste buds drive me to support terrible things.
I did finally quit. These days I don’t really miss much, food wise. And life lesson wise, it helps enable me to be a less unethical consumer. A store/product is involved with something morally terrible, like donating a lot of money to fascism? Welp, bye! No more money for you from me!
That a bunch of barbarians from north and western Europe whose primary values were ownership, sequestration, exploitation, and domination set the political, economic, social, and psychological agenda for an entire planet. True, this may have been the mode of survival from Rome to the Renaissance, but why are we still locked into it now?
The next part of this comment includes crude generalizations of 1st to 18th century for every continent. Historians, feel free to clarify. Ahistorical boobs, at least be willing to ask questions before you attack.
Turtle Island sustainability and oral history, Asian cosmic coexistence, Middle Eastern knowledge preservation, African social development, East Asian detente, Australo-Pacific deep time and vast exploration, and/or panhumanistic duty to family — no. Every other culture and value system expressed by non-Europeans was summarily suppressed, violently undercut, and disregarded as backward, non-Christian drivel. This continues into today.
Gangsters, germ warfare, rapid industrialization — yes. Every means of short-term gain, power concentration, expansionism, and advantage-taking is normal. Inter- and sometimes intra-familial feuding, marriage pacts, and warmongering is normal.
Sometimes, it seems that almost ANY other system than the one we have now — centered on wealth and weapons — would be an improvement. However, ever other system can not contend with the threats of wealth and weapons.
I’m frustrated that European values of ownership, exploitation, and domination have dominated the world, suppressing sustainable and diverse systems from other cultures (like Indigenous, Asian, and African traditions). These exploitative systems, focused on short-term gain and power, still shape our world today. I wonder why we’re stuck in this destructive framework and think almost any other system might be better—though none seem able to challenge the current dominance of wealth and weapons.