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What has changed as you've gotten older?
Could be something about you, your thoughts, priorities, health, etc.
Could be something about the world, the way things work, etc.
Could be anything really.
What has changed, and how do you feel about it?
Serious answer: Everything, really. Change is the one constant we have in our lives, and I don't think there are many things I could point you to and say, "yup, that's unchanged". Every mutable thing about me has changed, everything in my environment has changed, the world I'm in is so different from the one I grew up in...
Joke answer: I've got boobs now, I guess
I always thought it was super weird that theres so many people out there who are more or less the same as they were in high school.
It's super depressing to meet people who never are ashamed of their past selves. Its usually because they refuse to look backwards or inwards.
Or because they just don't feel ashamed of their past selves?
Did I say/do some dumb shit when I was a kid/teenager? Probably, everyone does in some degree. I did what I did with the information I had at that time. I did what I did because I thought it was the best thing to do at that time. There was never ill intent, I never deliberately hurt someone, I've always tried to be the best person I could at any time. Of course I made (dumb) mistakes, easily seen in hindsight, but that is nothing to be ashamed about.
Agree. Whatever your current position, you had to get there somehow, right?
In addition, I feel like people tend to frame it as a process of continuous improvement, as if current-self is better in every way than past-self. While current-me is a lot better than past-me in many ways, there are some ups and downs. The benefits of age have been discussed a lot here and elsewhere so I won't rehash. Aside from that, past-me me knew more general school topics like history/math/biology, was proficient in several musical instruments, and was braver, for better or worse. Current me has forgotten most schooling, retaining and cultivating a very specialized knowledge set, only really plays one instrument, and is more cautious, for better or worse.
While I feel like I'm wiser and probably a better person overall than before, I feel like getting older has been a complicated change, rather than a line trending up.
I've got a good buddy like this. Our 20-year reunion came up several years ago and he kept talking about how he wanted to go so he could talk shit to people he didn't like and "bang chicks."
I never bothered to tell him I was going. I had a good time talking to everyone there and seeing how people had changed over the years.
My friend has a good heart, he's just got some arrested development going on due to alcoholism.
Alcoholism really is crazy. I know a good few people with really deep problems which could be fixed if they would just stop drinking instead of actually trying to fix the issue.
I dated someone ages ago who would be a total asshole to me because instead of feeling any kind of remorse they just felt drunk.
Its like, why really take control of your life and get the things you want when you could be drunk instead of being happy? Insanity.
Yeah, I try to encourage him anytime he has plans to do something more with his life and really try and push him to do something about it, but it's like he's just been stuck for years now. Blows all his money on video games and beer, doesn't bother to better himself, even though there's much better things he could be doing.
He's a great artist, always wanted to do tattoo, but he fell off that and anything else he's even thought about pursuing. I don't think he's a bad person, I just gotta shake my head at him, because he could be doing so much more with his life. But ultimately, I can't do anything about it.
Seen it in my family. Two of my in laws are currently recovering alcoholics; they've been in remission for many years now, thankfully.
I definitely hover that line with alcohol myself, its scary.
I’m at a point in my career where I have to choose to keep learning new tech every couple years or pivot and go into management. I cant decide so I’m just sitting, thinking the universe will push me in a direction like it always does.
It feels like I’m just getting older, but maybe its actually just the once a week binge drinking
I know someone like that. For some, I think the resistance to change is a deliberate choice. I used to be friends with this person in high school and they chose to go to a university local to our metro area instead of going elsewhere in state or even out of state/international. The rest of our friend group went to universities elsewhere. When we'd returned just a few years later after graduating college, the rest of us had changed so much, even if our underlying personalities were similar. This one friend was still the same as we knew them in freshman year of highschool. Eventually, we grew apart as our lives got busy and we all had different things going on in our lives. For a while we'd try to check up on each other 2-3 times a year but that's now stopped unfortunately.
Interesting... How long ago was high school for you?
It's been 21 years since I graduated high school. And of the people I still stay in touch with, literally no one is anything like they were back then.
It was a different story when we were all 24 and people were still talking about high school like it was yesterday. And it slightly changed by the time we were 30, when some people still talked about high school days a little bit. and it is completely different now that we're 40/41 years old.
High school was about that long ago for me too, and its a mixed bag.
Of those that are left, a lot of the friends I was really close to are more or less the same. Some dropped religion, some were straight edge and now they drink more than I do, most have had major life events like starting a family, a career, getting married, but they don’t seem all that different to me.
I feel like a totally different person, I really thought I would be dead by 30 and instead I went and finished college and etc etc. Maybe its just by comparison that it doesn’t seem like the people around me have changed much. Maybe they have changed a lot and I just don’t see it because we only talk twice a year now.
I can't believe how much of a dumb ass I used to be at 20. I sometimes wonder, if at 80, I will look back at my 40's and simply shake my head. I hope so. I hope I am always learning, and getting wiser.
I came here to say this, but also: I drive slow AF now.
Life is too short to get all stressed the fuck out driving fast. It makes your chance of death exponentially higher with each extra MPH.
Chill out, drown the honks in tunes, and live better knowing that you'll almost certainly live longer than that asshole behind you blowing his horn at you because you're doing 60 in a 65. Or 15mph instead of standstill-30mph-standstill. If not for the driving, by avoiding their pending stress-induced brain aneurism.
Remember: Every MPH over 40 or so is also less efficient, and therefore worse for climate change. Fight the power. Drive 60 in a 65 so the people passing you at 65 force everyone to stop driving 85.
At some point I realized that speeding only made a minute or two difference in arrival time, even if you’re driving for an hour. If there are lots of stoplights and they’re timed properly, it makes zero difference.
I find a bit of extra speed really only adds up over hours of highway driving. The sort of trips where I'm driving 400 to 500 miles in a day. (Even then, I stick to no more than 10 over, and where the land is empty, the road is straight, and the traffic is sparse.)
Sure, that makes sense. I hardly ever drive like that.
If you drive 500 miles at a constant speed of 75mph instead of 70mph, you save less than 30 minutes. It’s really not worth it.
70 vs 80 is still less than an hour, and you may as well do 75 and avoid the increased risk because it’ll only take about 24 minutes extra.
Yup, same. I also realized that I only got more annoyed by other drivers driving slow and all that. So these days on the highway I try to stick to the right lane for the most part (law here says to keep to the right unless you are overtaking someone) and set my cruise control to the speed limit. Or if it is busy and people don't keep a constant speed I use the speed limit feature on my car and be my own adaptive cruise control.
People using adaptive cruise control the "wrong" way are still very much an annoyance to me. What I mean by that is people who mostly keep to the right, but have it set to +10 or +20 kph of the speed limit. So if they are behind someone who is driving the speed limit and that person moves further to the right they suddenly start speeding up.
So many times I have decided to overtake a bunch of cars driving way below the speed limit, decided to overtake only to find this happening. /rant
I find that a small hatch back gets the best of both worlds here. I can be doing 40mph and it feels like I'm doing 100 haha. Gotta be a modern car though so it's safe.
Big cars are more convenient in some ways, but they do make you feel like you're going slow.
Though yes, you're right, it's best to be going nice and slow, it's not worth it!
Trolling, but is it too much to ask that people look up each function that models the relevant phenomena and have them name the dominating factor accurately? Your chance of death only goes up quartically!
The issue with speeding really comes down to how cars are designed.
Now that I own a Prius, I get why Prius drivers are always driving so slowly. Especially in eco mode, it feels like you’re dragging a parachute behind you. There’s also an eco monitor on the dashboard that puts you in the “red zone” when you’re barely accelerating. If you aren’t actively paying attention to your speed, you’ll be going 55mph on the freeway.
On the other end of the spectrum, one time when I drove a Porsche 911, going 80mph felt incredibly slow. If you weren’t paying attention, you could get up to very high speeds. That car even had a customizable speeding reminder that would beep if you went over a certain speed to help with that issue.
Those were both extreme examples on opposite ends of the performance spectrum, but even in a typical commuter car, with horsepower and torque figures comparable to a Prius, it’s way too comfortable to speed. If cars were designed to not feel steady and comfortable at 80mph, people would naturally slow down.
Funny. I thought I was a rare bird because I’ve become a slow driver over the years.
Your outlook reminds me of a favorite bit of mine from Red vs. Blue.
They proved it mathematically! Hey. Can't argue with math.
Maybe I should get a Strong Bad tat. I’ve been a fan for two decades. Oh! I could surround him with cool wings and Japanese kanji over some explosions! And I could wrap my bicep with some sweet barbed wire to frame it all. Yeah. I think that would be pretty awesome.
Of Trogdor, The Burninator, please.
With consummate V's!
And a beefy arm, coming out of the back of his neck there
The video was uploaded 17 years ago but I am confident this was much older than that.
Rooster Teeth existed before YT. So it's very likely that it was on the RT site long before YT
My thought is that at 80, we'll all look back. . . . And wonder where we put our dentures that morning. 40 is peak brain.
I have a lot less patience for people who must see a thing to believe it’s real. I’m unimpressed with fathers who finally believe sexual harassment is a real thing only after watching their daughters cry over it.
Great "see-it-to-believe-it" example. Some people are so proud and so scared of being wrong that they need to be bludgeoned over the head with an experience for the cognitive dissonance to disappear, even in a small way.
I feel like climate change is the newest entry into this fight. There's no persuading these people that there's something wrong, even when they can't breathe the air outside.
And even after they see it and believe it, they only believe it for themselves in their situation, but not for anyone else.
I know someone who is vocal victim blamer on facebook, but when it happened to her, suddenly her story changed. And then a couple of years after her situation, it's back to "oh but you asked for it because of xyz, but I didn't ask for it and was assaulted."
Oh yeah, it's only for a day to two that they consider the larger implications of victimhood and how that must feel for everybody in those circumstances. After that time, it's as if the window for wisdom has closed and they're back to blaming.
I mean, I'd say that all of us rationalize events in our own way, but when you see somebody experience, then cut off reasoning that's so obvious, it's super jarring. You can't help but judge them.
Fantastic example and naming a phenomenon, thx!
Slightly tangential: My boss is like this but reversed?... He doesn't think words mean anything anymore and must show images to feel like he has conveyed information.
(I understand it has to do with employing people who aren't fluent in the same language as him, but I still am!)
As someone who has been very sensitive to rejection, I've accepted that there is no way to avoid being criticised.
Sometimes every possible outcome of a decision will get you criticised, sometimes even from the very same person.
People will criticise you when you do a good thing because you didn't spend that time doing an even better thing.
People will criticise you for not doing something "the right way" even if that doesn't work for you.
And even if you hurt nobody and the opportunity cost is zero they can mock you for being cringe or having bad vibes or whatever.
The only way to avoid being criticised is to never do anything or stand for anything, and then even if nobody calls you lazy you will probably judge yourself for that.
So the only way to live is make decisions as best you can and treat judgemental remarks as the cost of doing business, not your fault and not necessarily as mistakes that need rectifying.
Love this. In addition to "just be yourself", it's hard to believe that so much of the cheesy advice we got from authority figures when we were younger is actually useful.
Wait, it's not. We were just stubborn young idiots :)
I remember that. You don't say it outright, but I hope you're implying that you've let go of that belief (and congratulations if so!)
Next is pineapple on pizza. Baby steps.
Sounds like you've had pretty hardcore changes in opinion on a few fronts. With an expanded/altered worldview, where do you find meaning now?
Also, did you ever try out higher Ed to see for yourself what all of the fuss was about?
The place where I find meaning now is the same as the one I found meaning in before: my religion. That is a part of the fundamental beliefs that I haven’t changed. It’s true that I’ve experienced some hardcore changes elsewhere.
As for higher education, a lot of stars would have to align:
So, as you can see, the ship for higher education has sailed for good.
It’s a long story, but I actually dropped out of college thrice between ages 19 and 24. Call it karma. I’m not getting a fourth chance, and to be honest... I don’t really want to. I think that it’s already massive progress for me that I’m willing to acknowledge that I was wrong about not wanting a degree in higher education.
I would consider getting an education in some other field, but then a different set of stars would have to align:
I’ve had almost two dozen different jobs since I’ve turned 19, and I hated almost all of them.
Some exceptions were:
If I wasn’t so afraid of challenge, having to figure things out, and being left without any free time, then I’d love to own a pastry shop or something like that, to own my own business. The problem with that is:
Haha. This sounded pretty doom and gloom, and I’m probably just lazy and afraid of every little challenge, but it felt good to get all this out because I don’t often get the chance to, and I’ve been rummaging over these thoughts for a very long time.
I feel ya, and frankly, it's not too gloomy. You're a realist about the situation and like you, I appreciate how cathartic and refreshing it can be to just be honest about where you're at and what you need at this time.
University, too, is hardly the be all end all of education. I work at one and have been through the system and different degree disciplines multiple times and I still, for different reasons, value my trade diploma a lot more. Even continuing education courses - night classes -- stand out in my mind as I go for the joy of learning and the need to have pressure in order to learn (I've been studying Japanese and creative writing.)
Happy to hear that you have perspective on this one. For what it's worth, if my wife was Latvian and I lived in Latvia, it'd be a fuck yeah choice to learn the language. Have you tried? Like, given it the old "college try"? ;)
I have to admit, I don’t know what a “college try” is, haha, but if you mean to ask if I’m trying to learn the language, I am. I’ve read a thick (300+ pages) detailed grammar book through, twice almost. I speak Latvian every day with everyone around me here (except my wife). Like I said, I can get around the language. I think that I’ve been so slow to “perfect” it though because, well... I’m 36. I also already am fluent in Portuguese, German, English, French, and Spanish. Not much “memory” left in there, I’m afraid. Maybe those are just excuses though. lEither way, I have been learning Latvian, but at this point, I am comfortably sitting at level B1 and from here on out, progress is real slow.
That's amazing, though. With polyglot credentials like that, I'm surprised you've never heard the term "College Try".
Well, I guess this is my North American slang bias showing. Maybe it's just a thing over here.
Oo that’s… not easy? Or do you mean you can coast on the job, not that it’s easy to get there?
The later. My wife has been in medicine since before I knew her, and through her (and her mother, who is a nurse), I’ve come to spend a lot of time around doctors. I think I could be a competent family doctor. What attracts me to that profession is that it seems to be equal parts stable and predictable, but also interesting enough to never get too dull. Of course, it also a lot of hard work. I’m not afraid of that though. What I can’t tolerate is being bossed around and micromanaged.
I’m on the same boat. I’ve struggled as an employee for 20 years (ever since I started working). I just can’t feel comfortable having someone else ruling my life, I feel like a toddler. And I feel exploited being paid little in comparison to how much profit the company is making, at the expense of my sanity and health.
So I’ve switched to being an independent consultant for the last few years. I have nobody telling me what to do, how to do it, or when to do it. I earn in a week as much as I’d get in two months as salary (my daily rate isn’t cheap)
But there are downsides: I have no stability (a client can stop the project pretty much whenever, or they can just stop paying their bills), I have to find my own customers, and most insurances are on me (disability, retirement, etc). I tried to spread the risk by working several part time projects at the same time so that losing one is fine. But it’s not easy.
All this to say that 1. There might be downsides that you’re not seeing until you actually experience them and 2. People always make it look easier and more chill than it really is (everyone enjoys bragging, even a little) 3. Try and think how you could change your circumstances and remove the aspect that annoys you the most. Your brain will chew on it for a while and eventually come up with a solution but it can take a long time. I wanted to do my own thing for years before I actually managed to pull it off. Good luck!
Thanks for the advice. That’s exactly what I fear about being self-employed: the added risk, added labor, and added responsibilities. Like I always say: In life, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
To each their own. For me it’s worth it: if I sit myself down and plan calmly, I can explain myself that yes it’s less stable, but since I bill so much when I do, my runway really is 3 years of living expenses (not opulent but not destitute either) and so unless I can’t find a single new project in 3 years I’ll be fine.
OTOH while being an employee I always ended up getting laid off or quitting after 6 months—2 years and then needing several months to a year just to recover (mentally) before I could go back in the grinder for another loop. So all in all even as an employee I didn’t really have stability anyway. But I was giving up a lot of agency in living my life while destroying my health in return.
I've never asked, but I'm doubtful that the doctors at Kaiser (where I go) have much freedom to do things their way? How many doctors work for themselves or a small office nowadays?
Well, but when the patient comes into the office, is there someone else looking over their shoulders micromanaging everything they do and say? That’s what bothers me with most other jobs.
In full transparency, i haven't pirated anything in a while so maybe my experience is outdated, but pirating was so inconvenient that I'm actually surprised so many people are doing it. Sure, I can watch a movie that just started playing in the theaters last night, but I don't really want to watch a movie someone recorded on their phone at a weird angle while they were eating a six course meal and the person next to them talked the entire time.
Yes, I know not every pirated movie was like this but way too many were.
I guess you haven’t done it in a while
Pirating is so easy I don’t understand why more people don’t do it.
I want to watch a movie/tv show. Paying for it means:
Vs not paying for it:
The era of telecine and camera-filmed in a theatre are long gone. The experience is so much better now. I’ll never pay for a movie or tv show.
All the above is hypothetical of course. I watch all my entertainment legally. I’m just trying my hand at creative writing/illustrating how a friend does it.
I had a similar feeling whenever I played games via emulators (mostly GBC/GBA/GCN/Wii): no matter how well they ran, it still felt weird not to play them on the original hardware. I could never get over that.
The emulators are pretty good now. Devices like what ambernics does along with mustardos is pretty great. AMD you can have shaders and filters to make the display look like the original console (but better).
I’m better looking.
Me too! But I don’t know how much of it is me actually being more attractive and how much is just me being more confident.
probably both, to be honest. Confidence goes a long way and kind of self-perpetuates.
I recently updated my wardrobe and I'm getting compliments from randos on the street. Its all minor differences like nicer brogues, textured fabrics, etc.. same ol' haircut. Confidence goes a long way.
Heh, it’s funny. I remember as a kid seeing this show about women who get haircuts and basically changing personalities, and thinking that it was crazy. But I started feeling this way after spending a lot of money on a fancy haircut now.
Honestly there’s a lot more reason but most of it is not really appropriate for Tildes. 😅
It’s so true, though! Even something as simple as a haircut absolutely impacts the way people approach you — /r/bald is a perfect example of this.
Keep the details for Tildes: After Dark :)
Do I need a separate invitation to that? If so, I am insulted I have yet to receive one!
honestly, I think its right here until further notice. Maybe we'll dial it back to Tildes: Nights. Sound good?
Same thing!
My life has changed immensely, which is part of how things go.
Looking at myself in my early 30s vs my early 20s vs my early 10s shows huge changes over the years:
I'm a vastly different person compared to who I used to be, and I know that in another 10 years I'll be a different person than who I am now. I think that I've mostly moved in the positive direction, but I have had some negatives that I'm working on addressing.
Relationships have also changed drastically over the years. I have some friends whom I'm still friends with since I was 5 and others whom I thought would be best friends for life drifted apart for one reason or another. Some guys I didn't think I'd get a long with have become friends I check in with regularly, and we make the time to hop on calls even though we live in drastically different timezones.
I do miss some of my old friendships and think about them occasionally. Things change and I try to appreciate the good times and things I've learned from them. For most of them if they reached out to me, I'd be happy to reconnect, and very few have caused me to permanently close the door on a relationship with them. There are billions more people for me to meet and relationships to be had.
Not sure if you're approaching 40 and in the same city as your old pals, but reconnecting at this age is more of a thing than you'd think.
You've all lived a lifetime or two since your early years, and there's so much cool reflection a person can do with old friends at this stage.
Not sure if you're the kind of person to reach out first, but if not, I'd encourage it. People so rarely make reconnecting a priority, and if you don't act on it, the moment will eventually disappear
I'm still in my early 30s, and live on the other side of the planet from where I grew up.
Some of those friends made the choice to cut me off for one reason or another and I eventually just stopped trying to reach out when it became clear that they didn't have interest in talking to me. Maybe in another ~10 years I'll give it a try again for some of them by sending them an email/message. I still send birthday wishes to some of them but receive no response and just shrug.
If I was still in town it'd be easier to arrange a meet up somewhere neutral and try and reconnect, but when I do get back in town I have so little time that I try to make the most of it by seeing as many of my friends as I can and spending time with them
Sounds like you've made the effort but many of them haven't. Sounds like you made the right choice. Ghosting is bad form all around.
Things could change, and I've moved past it bothering me in most cases. If they don't want to talk to me, they don't owe me the response. Out of the people that stopped responding there's only one that I'd actually want to reconnect with, but I don't have a way to get in contact with him besides through his brother and I don't want to put him in that awkward situation. I also don't think he would be receptive as my other friend, whom he also cut off, is pretty sure his girlfriend (now wife) was the reason he stopped talking to us. Long story there, but at this point it's been ~10 years.
I've unfortunately been immature and ghosted a couple of people previously. Not a high moment for me, but not something I plan to do again. Easier for everyone to just end things directly and not leave someone wondering.
Edit: I changed back to past since I meant I had moved past this bothering me.
In my early teens I just wanted to play video games and laze around.
In my 20s I was focusing on my career and having aspirations.
Now that Im in my 30s I just want to play video games and laze around.
I probably should have phrased that the playing games was something that I did besides just wanting to. I still very much want to do that in my 30s! Though I do find gaming to be a much lower priority for me. I think once my kids are a bit older and can play with me, I'll probably start gaming a bit more and in the distant distant future when they are adults I'll play a lot more regularly.
As a Bean who didn't party hard and basically on a similar trajectory thereafter, did I miss much?
I would say yes/no. My shift out of partying also came as part of my embracing of my faith so there's a bit of Philippines 3:8 to how I view a lot of my actions at that time.
I have some fond memories of the crazy things they we did, but there are actions I took that I look back on and can't help but cringe.
Some highlights:
Some lowlights:
Midlight:
I met my wife towards the end of my partying phase and we did a decent amount of partying together from fraternity parties to raves. We met each other at very low points in our lives and climbed out together through the grace of God.
Those are some pretty wild stories OvO !!! How on earth did you guys get all that sand in and out of the basement, free pledge labour? It's so interesting to me that this is a real cultural thing that happened in modern times.... What do you think of Old School the movie or which Hollywood films feel the most real to you?
The toga party is one of our formal house dances, with my chapter hosting the first one in 1950 before it was adopted by the entire fraternity a few years later.
Getting the sand in is a bucket brigade by any active member/pledge who wants to join in. Usually some mixed drinks/jungle juice as an incentive to test out what we'd serve during the party. Getting the sand out was also a bucket brigade powered by pledges and their big brothers as part of initiation week. If they have a smaller pledge class other brothers will help out to make sure it isn't too much work for them. It's a team building activity, not a punishment after all.
Something funny was that during a somewhat recent big renovation they replaced wall paneling and found decades of sand layered behind it almost like tree rings. You could see the different shades of sand over the years.
I haven't watched many fraternity movies. Old School was funny but not very accurate. I'm personally a fan of Animal House, classic movie and my manager at my university job was president of the Sigma Nu chapter where they filmed the Omega House scenes. I've had friends tell me Blue Mountain State caught the feeling even though it isn't about fraternity life. Monster's University is pretty fun, classic bottom house improving story.
I think it's a very unique experience and I really do recommend people to approach if with an open mind. You'll meet people from so many different walks of life. We had straight edge brothers who wouldn't touch a drop of alcohol or any drugs and they never got any problems. We had one guy show up to a drinking game with a gallon of milk instead of alcohol and we all thought it was hilarious. You also learn to live with and bond with people who are vastly different from you. I remember seeing one of our Christian brothers taking a radical atheist to hospital after he broke his wrist or a staunch "communist" sitting down with an avowed MAGA conservative to help him with homework he struggled with. Those same brothers would then go out to bars and come back to argue with each other about politics (which was very annoying when I was playing Smash Bros while baked).
I'm an open book about my experiences since I think people have a lot of misconceptions or assumptions about it. The only off limit topic is the fraternity's initistion ritual, as that is the one secret part that serves as a tie that binds us together. For non members it would just be a "oh that's interesting" curiosity, but for the members it is a meaningful experience that feels earned after the pledging process.
That sounds like so much fun :) it's a really welcome surprise to hear about non-exclusion for brothers who don't want to drink or do other things. I hadn't even thought of passing buckets of sand being fun but I'm glad I asked you about it, because that does sound like fun when standing in a line shoulder to shoulder with other dudes with buckets.
Are alumni able to re-visit their old houses ? Did you ever drop back in to say hi?
We would usually ask when they pledged if they had any dietary or personal restrictions like that. If a guy doesn't want to drink that's his choice. We had a guy who mentioned he wouldn't drink beer as he had crohn's disease and beer would cause flare-ups or the vegetarian guy etc.
I wouldn't necessarily call the hauling of sand a fun activity, but it was a bonding experience for the entire pledge class and their big brothers. I'm sure someone would come out of the woodwork and call it hazing, but I think we managed a very good balance of having the experience be challenging and the initiation week feeling like a rite of passage of sorts.
Alumni are able to re-visit. Usually you'll see recent alumni come by for a party or two if invited by active brothers and older alumni will drop by when they're in the area to take a look at the house, share some stories, and usually drop off a case of beer for the active guys. Some of the guys I went to school with still live fairly close and go by regularly for tailgating and other events that alumni are invited to. I think I went by twice post graduation to guys I was still friends with. Since then they've had a big rennovation project and if I can swing it I may take a drive down to visit again when I go visit my parents again in the US, just depends on if I bring my family along or not since I wouldn't want to bring them on a 4 hour round trip just for nostalgia.
I'm older than most here, and one thing that strikes me is that my world has gotten much smaller. Many of the people that I cared about are gone now, both family and friends. With each loss, a whole network of other people disappeared as well, and it is virtually impossible to reconnect without that bridge created by a friend.
Make an effort to stay in touch with your closest friends for as long as possible. They aren't really replaceable.
That's a heavy thought for a middle aged bean, so I'm going to diffuse it with a not serious comment.
Are you 56 years old or were you --gasp-- born in 1956?
In seriousness, though, it's a very timely reminder. I hope that my world does not get much smaller, or that I can be more intentional in devoting time and resources to keep up with friends.
Your gasp was correct, but that wasn't why I chose the name. I've been using it for over twenty years on the internet in various forums, but originally it was in reference to my football jersey. Just a coincidence that it was my birth year.
I wrote a story set in my hometown, with four characters who were loosely based on my friends and me in high school. I sent a copy to one of them, who I lost touch with years ago, and it led to us keeping in contact a little better. That was one of the happier results of my writing efforts. Never too late to reach out to others, not while you're both alive and kicking.
That's a beautiful way of reconnecting with someone. I wonder if I am remembered by others of my highschool era, and if so, hopefully not too many instances of me being the villain..... I have thought about reaching out in writing to a couple people before .... One is very much too late, another might be disruptive of their current lives, and a third I'm hoping for neutral or positive results.
Happy milestone year :)
Algorithms have largely lost the ability to show me anything I want to see.
I used to go to Youtube or Reddit and itd be kind of hit or miss but itd generally be the kind of stuff I might like.
Now its more like Im being ragebaited constantly, I dont even know what Im looking for anymore.
Interesting, I feel like Reddit's has gotten worse lately when I do visit it. I used to see a lot of highly upvoted posts from Subreddits I was subscribed to, and now I see a lot more random posts. I've also occasionally seen it subscribe me to Subreddits that I never subscribed to. It gets worse and worse and I try to stick to niche subs these days.
YouTube I feel has a decent lock on things I'd find interesting, but I wish they'd tone down how aggressive it recommends things. I watch one video that looks interesting, and then I'll see similar videos recommended a ton for a while.
Two major things for me:
I've accepted that I'll be alone for the rest of my life. I'm in my mid 40s now, waaaay past my dating prime, and the chances of me finding "happily ever after" are slim-to-none. I'm at peace with this and I embrace the freedom that comes with this.
I've become a lot less tolerant of difficulty levels in games with stories. More specifically, I'll play games with stories but if the game has a strong story, then I will, at some point, download a trainer or a mod and cheat my way through it because I want to know the ending. If the gameplay is engaging, then I'll actually play the game proper during a second run through the game.
Mind you, this is only games with strong stories. Games that focus more on gameplay and not story, I'll play straight because, well, that's kind of the point.
I think I kind of get what you mean with the second one. That’s what annoyed me a lot about Hollow Knight. I wanted to explore that world, but the game was so difficult that I can’t even fathom trying out Silksong. Pragmata had some pretty tough moments too, and that also detracted from the experience on occasion. I want to play games with a story, but I want their difficulty to remain at a reasonable level. My time is precious. I don’t want to waste it on grinding the same bosses over and over again until I memorize the patterns and/or get lucky. That’s just not fun. I’m not getting younger. I need to make my time playing games count.
I've come to appreciate games that have a "Story" mode difficulty, though I typically don't use it. Or like in Celeste or Control, where there are some options under the accessibility settings menu to tune the difficulty in fine-grained ways (and using them isn't judgy and doesn't block achievements). Bonus points if I can adjust the difficulty on the fly, so that I can keep it challenging in general but adjust it down to get past That One Boss and then crank it right back up again after.
I remember asking a few old dogs this question when I was working as a hotel bartender in my 20s. They laughed and said "well, you drink more" and it still makes me think.
Not about the drinking, but the escapism. Nostalgia has a powerful pull and I sometimes wonder if my attachment to things I liked in my formative years (video games, films) over more experimental, fringe stuff that I was into in my 20s and 30s is the result of life in my 40s being almost as predictable as it was in my teens.
The doldrums of school have been replaced with the humdrum of work, and parenting a young child has a way of making a person seek out media and hobbies that are more comforting than mind expanding.
I'd be very curious to see if drinking continues to fade out for the next generations, or if we will see a resurgence as millennials get to your bar patrons' age.
Parenting a young child can be a wonderful sort of time travel, when we get to engage into their hobbies again and experience new things or old things anew
It's an amazing, taxing, nothing-quite-like-it journey. As for drinking, I wonder. It has its ills, but seeing the social challenges that haunt a society that doesn't drink have me equally concerned.
Safe recreational drugs are my suggestion. Design something as benign as coffee with mood enhancers that lasts a couple of hours and we'll be cooking with gas!
I know some people in my life who are like this. I recently got so frustrated with them that I came to the same conclusion.
Tangent from my own life related to this.
I realized I don't have the energy for it, and more over it's energy wasted because they don't change no matter what approach I take. They're too entrenched.
We can't even have a discussion because their standards are inconsistent and change based on whatever justifies their point of view.
Heck, the main person who drove this will actively incite conflict. If you ignore it or just try to brush it aside, they will keep trying to bring it up in increasingly abrasive ways.
What's crazy is that even though they're like this online, and why I left that discord, I just saw them in person and we were completely fine. Even getting along.
It's interesting that we can be in conflict with the same person's online persona but completely fine with their IRL persona.
Anyways, all that to say props to you for coming to that realization probably long before I did! It's good for your health.
I remember when I looked forward to growing older. This is over. Life has no more good surprises for me.
Not one? ;) surely there must be something piquing your curiousity
This reads like a great start of some kind of novel.
Maybe a grimy detective story in the spirit of Tracer Bullet?
Or some kind of dystopian world building or self imposed hermit experience or something.
Anyway: if nothing else, you have a way with words!
I can no longer spontaneously run and jump. Now I have to plan such antics carefully, and sometimes even calculate the odds of public humiliation if my back should go out while executing the plan.
Neck pain and some back pain. Through at least my early-30s, I could sleep anywhere in any position. Technically I still can (I have no problems falling asleep on a plane, for example), but the problem is the back and neck pain that comes with that. And it's not like it goes away in a few hours. No, it lasts DAYS. There was one time, where, because I snoozed my alarm clock for like 15min, I went from sleeping on my back, to sleeping on my side. When I actually got up, my neck hurt if I moved my head at all. And I was shocked. Because when I snoozed my alarm, my neck was fine. Anyway, it lasted TWO DAYS.
More recently, I've also noticed that my neck hurts just from sitting in front of my computer. I need to figure out how to raise my monitors so I'm not so slouched/hunched over.
I've heard from older coworkers and such that when they turned 40yo, it all just went downhill. I'm in my last year of my 30s. Great.
This is acutely relevant to me right now.
My dog snuggled up to me in my sleep on Saturday night, and I instinctively adjusted to accommodate him, putting me into a slightly weird position for the rest of the night.
The next morning, Sunday, I woke up with a crick in my neck and could barely turn my head.
It's now Tuesday, and my neck is only like, 80% recovered. It's still a touch stiff, and I don't have full range of motion back yet.
That's funny - I was commenting to my PT last week that in your 20's, you can blame aches and pains on the sport you spent hours playing during the weekend. At some point in your life as you get older, all it takes is "I slept wrong."
Easiest fix is to use books.
My neck has also been bothering me a lot for the last three or so years now.
I was having some lower back pain the past couple years or so (I'm 45 for reference), and just recently ditched my old el-cheapo desk chair from Amazon for a remanufactured Steelcase Leap v2. After just a few days I already felt like a new person. Lower back pain has completely vanished since the change. Take my anecdote for what it is, but I am now a believer that your chair can make all the difference, especially if you sit in it all day for work like I do.
I have an IKEA desk chair for my main gaming setup. But I also have a couple really nice, really expensive office chairs I got from my previous work when we downsized. They're at my other desks that I don't use as much. Maybe I should swap my IKEA for one of those. Good call!