Including your age is appreciated but not required
I’m 45 now. If you would have told me at half my age how angry and sad I am in general, I probably would’ve been very confused and broken hearted. I guess the time is important for the desensitization.
The American experiment ending like this, with not one person standing up for it.
But if we stand up against it, we’ll be off’ed or thrown into prison. It’s not our fault a bunch of despotic tyrranic dystopian oligarch fascists are burning the world down. You say it’s our fault if we don’t stop them?? How about it’s THEIR fault for burning the world down?!
Well, who’s us, and who’s them, in that paragraph? Does a congressman count as them? What about a senator, or an ordinary local Republican? There isn’t actually any distinction.
The truth is evil is banal, and like always in these parts of history, it’s a movement through all stratums of society. The big ones would never have captured that government power without help from the little ones. Not everyone is onboard, so yes, it’s probably not your fault, but it’s not really just Trump’s fault, either.
Propaganda is a helluva drug.
I’m 40, half a life ago I was 8 years pre-lung transplant. I’d be shocked that I did it at all, I was very anti-transplant for various reasons but having kids I love enter my life when I was 22 changed my mind, which would also be a shocker since I was also anti kids at 20, but I’d also be shocked it worked, one of the main reasons I was against it was I was sure if I got one I would suffer even more and die anyway. So I guess at the end of the day, I’d be mostly surprised I wasn’t dead.
I’m a woman now.
Well 15 year old me, you’ll figure it out in about two years.
Sorry for how trite and predictable this is, but even though I was pretty cynical half my life ago, I couldn’t have imagined so vile and corrupt a personage occupying the White House as what is there now, nor how easily and with how much cooperation they’ve been able to destroy the Constitution and government that was based on it.
yeah felt like nixon was an anomaly and reagan and um man bush jr. seems pretty typical for these guys, but surely it could not get worse…
26, to my 13 self would be wack. I came out at 17, married at 24, divorced at 25. Still the same kid looking for friends and a family. I would’ve believed my parents would be homophobic at 13 and they still are at 26. I dropped out of college, didn’t marry my girlfriend. I’m a chef now, I studied hard to follow my dad into an IT career, that went no where fast.
My 13 yo self would think I’m a loser and an addict. He was very dumb and a 13 yo, lmao wtf do they know.
That everything I learned about computers from assembly language in the 80s to tinkering with all the operating systems in the world would be thrown in the trash by a bunch of moronic managers who decided that ChatGPT was better than learning and being curious.
And as a result, that I would be disgusted by what is happening with programmers, and that I would find another job that does not involve any technology whatsoever. I loved that shit, I hate what it has become.
Did you expect to live to see robots replace a lot of stuff? It’s hard to imagine you never thought about it, if that was your background.
What job did you switch to?
No job yet, I have a lot of ideas but it’s difficult to change when you’ve been focused on computers for so long.
Wishing you success in your career change!
Thanks!
How boring I am
40 now. At 20 I was a know-it-all crusader against having kids and now my two children are the absolute center of my universe.
I can’t even begin to explain the kind of joy these two kids create out of thin air. It’s simply beyond my ability to describe how much I love them and how grateful that I am to have met a woman I loved so much that it seemed wrong to not want to bring more of her into the world.
I am so fucking overwhelmed that my life turned out the way it has that I suffer from hidden imposter syndrome because I just don’t feel like I deserve to be this happy.
All I can do is try to be a worthy father and husband.
My boyfriend cares about me. Like, deeply. Like he will go out of his way to do things to support me. I was raised being told over and over that men are selfish and generally more concerned for themselves than their wives. That I need to be prepared to shoulder more of the burden. This is weird. He’s super nice. I can’t get over it.
I see this depiction of men all the time, and it just baffles me.
At the end of the day, most men are so happy when they are able to provide, protect, and support their wives / families / friends. Doing so is how most men measure their success in life. As Eddie Murphy said, all we really ask in return is the big piece of chicken.
because it’s a projection. the women who complain about men being like that… are mostly talking about themselves.
i’ve dated many women who thought that way… and they are talking about themselves. they see the world through an adversarial lens and everything is about them having power over others and being terrified of anyone having power over them.
and if you explain to them you don’t want any power over them they simple don’t believe you. they think it’s a lie or a manipulation tactic… because that’s how they treat everyone, through lies and manipulation. and no matter how honest you are with them… doesn’t matter because they don’t believe honesty exists.
parents project their shit onto their kids, it sucks.
a lot of unhappy people, refuse to let anyone around them ever be happy. you’re allowed to be happy. don’t let other folks unhappiness ruin yours, because they will try very hard to ruin it for you.
My wife is like that for a lot of valid reasons. If I may give you a useless piece of advice, enjoy it instead of fighting it because he may be serious about what he is doing.
How much I’ve started to hate technology. It’s like I had smart phones before my peers had flip phones. Same with computers; let me go to the computer graveyard room and put one together for myself. My family was very into tech so I had a computer since I was 5.
I think at this point I’m just not into it. Same with cars; I like my almost thirty year old cars.
what do you think of Car And Driver? it’s an amazing magazine that makes me wanna get into cars (i am politically urbanist)
You know, I never read it so I can’t say. It looks like it would be a good read. Personally, I research the engines and transmissions as well as what advanced features cars have. I would rather have a car with a cool suspension and a limit slip differential like my Infiniti (Nissan) than all the electronic bells and whistles modern cars have. I used to have a Volvo, I crashed it twice because I was fighting against all of the “safety” features… I’m not sure why they would put in a system to brake one caliper, but then again this was when Ford bought the company. It was fun to momentum drift in the rain even though it was FWD.
I’m 44. The fact I’m still living. Nothing is wrong with me health wise. It’s just that past 40 is such a long time to live.
What really made it hit was when I gave more thought to how much trash the human race has created, even in 20 years, let alone since the wave of products in the 50s.
Like, I think it can just end any time. We had a good run.
The two things I think would be most surprising to 25 year old me would be that I still skateboard regularly, and how happy I am being single, as they’d just gotten married and been told they’re too old to be skating.
Ooh, skateboard grandpa. That’s a vibe, I dig it.
(Yes, I know 50 isn’t really a grandpa. Zaddy, maybe?)
Had to look up Zaddy, will absolutely take it
I’ve heard about this guy named Tony who still skates at the age of 58. He’s pretty good at it too. I wonder if he ever considered a career in it.
Tony Crow? Yeah he’s my neighbor. Great guy.
No, Tony Magnusson, but I’m pretty sure he retired
I still cannot belive I am married to my wife. She is amazing. She can basically solve any problem. She is a great mom. She helps me talk through my problems, she helps me make decisions, she can hold up her end of a conversation, and she is beautiful. I’ve always been fascinated by women in their late 30’s or 40’s that were still beautiful, and now I have one living in my house.
Jackpot! Treat her well and never take her for granted
I used to have a little comic I kept at my desk. There was a couple in it, the woman asks the man “where are yoy taking me?” To which he replied “for granted!”
I kept it there as a reminder to myself, to never take my wife for granted, to always work at improving myself and always let her know she is the center of my universe.
I also choose this person’s wife
The biggest surprise would definitely be that I’m trans, so I look completely different now than 19-years-old me might have imagined :D
Same age. 19 year old me had never even heard of trans people, so it would definitely be a shock, but I’d like to think a welcome one.
I sorta knew that trans people existed, but didn’t know of hormone replacement (in the '00s Hungarian tabloids only spoke of surgeries when they mentioned trans people 🙄), and since I couldn’t have passed without that, it never crossed my mind that me being trans was an option.
IDK. I think the half part is what gets me on this. I’m a similar age to you. But my 19 year old self was definitely a repper. My 12 or 13 year old self would be shocked. My 19 year old self would be understanding but horrified. They can both pound sand. I would have a lot of fun tormenting my 19 year old self. Would torment him with lurid descriptions of how I’ve had srs, am married to a cis het guy, and all that that implies. 🤣🤣🤣
oh I had to look up “repper”, I see now :)
I know many trans people know their gender identity from an early age, and have strong convictions despite society’s pressure, but being agender, I had no strong convictions about my gender, it wasn’t even there. And I always tried to be practical, and so the only option that seemed available was to just try to put up with my born sex and assigned gender no matter how unhappy they made me 🫠
