As a kid I trusted adults knew what they were doing. As an adult I now know they have no clue what they are doing.
As a young adult I found out adults have no idea, as an older adult I found out it's not about knowing what to do in advance but being able to figure it out.
But it’s truly worrying how many people are just phoning it in most of the time.
Lack of empathy is not something people grow out of, it seems like it is something that grows more severe the older people get.
While that can certainly be true, I would say I've gained more empathy as I got older. I was never hateful, but I probably was more dismissive entering adulthood. I didn't understand what I had when I was younger and thought everyone should be able to do what I did and just didn't for some reason I didn't understand. Over time I realized how wrong I was. I saw what advantages I had that led me to where I was, and how many MANY people didn't have those same things, and that expecting them to have equal success was unrealistic and shameful on my part.
It is so easy for life to knock a human off course or keep them off course. An injury, addiction, an abusive family member, poverty, chronic illness, genetic disorder, political instability, bigotry, victim of crime, economic recession, or a natural disaster. Any one of these things and more can do it. I had little to no concept of these when I was younger. Growing up, meeting people, learning about the world, learning history made me much more open to others suffering and the desire to use what I have been lucky enough to have to help others, and recognize we, as a society, must help others. Its the only way we'll all survive. Divided we fall.
I can say the same for myself, I just don't see it as often as I had hoped in others.
I reflect on my past self and wish I had been a better person in my teens/early 20s. I can't change who I was or how I behaved or thought back then but I can change the person I am now and who I aspire to be. I am also trying to foster that attitude and the skills to be empathetic in my kids.
I'm more empathetic now than I was 40 years ago.
People don't become less empathetic as they get older. They were assholes already.
Success in life is 75% luck. Everything you control (dedication, tenacity, ambition, follow through, dependability) is in the first 25%. The remaining 75% is just luck that you have no control over. That doesn't mean you can slack on that first 25%, but even if you absolutely kill it on the first 25% you can still fail in life. I say this as someone that most would consider successful. Yes I worked hard to get where I am, but lots of people work far harder and have far less. I was born in the right place, with the right talents, in the right period in time/history, and with enough of the preferred genetics. Even had everything else been equal and I was born 20 years earlier or 20 years later, I wouldn't be nearly as successful.
It shouldn't be like this. Its not fair its like this, but this is reality.
A local YouTuber I follow said this once: "There's no guarantee that you'll succeed after working hard, but I guarantee that you won't if you don't".
It sounds cheap and all, but it finally ingrained itself to my brain because it's a less optimistic quote.
WDYM? I can be a railroad mogul one day, or an oil baron, an automotive entrepreneur, a sugar plantation owner, or even a privateer, if I hustle hard enough, right?
People are mostly dumb. Justice is largely a myth. Chaos reigns.
It's kind of amazing that we get people to collaborate as well as they do. The downside is that we need to appeal to the lowest common denominator of self-interest.
Most Americans can't read past an 8th-grade level, and that shocks hell out of me. When I was in 6th-grade, standardized tests pegged me at "college level", which I figured was utter bullshit, thought I was being buttered-up somehow. Turns out it was true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
In 2023, 28% of adults scored at or below Level 1, 29% at Level 2, and 44% at Level 3 or above.[1] Adults scoring in the lowest levels of literacy increased 9 percentage points between 2017 and 2023. In 2017, 19% of U.S. adults achieved a Level 1 or below in literacy while 48% achieved the highest levels.[2]
Anything below Level 3 is considered "partially illiterate" (see also § Definitions below).[3] Adults scoring below Level 1 can comprehend simple sentences and short paragraphs with minimal structure but will struggle with multi-step instructions or complex sentences, while those at Level 1 can locate explicitly cued information in short texts, lists, or simple digital pages with minimal distractions but will struggle with multi-page texts and complex prose.[4] In general, both groups struggle reading complex sentences, texts requiring multiple-step processing, and texts with distractions.[4]
This explains so much about all the stupid shit I see. Most Americans literally aren't literate enough to follow a piece of literature, would struggle with any given novel.
“There was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting. And I believe that time can come again!”
Shower sex.
In the movies it looks so hot, but in reality, you've got a eyes and mouth full of soap and your freezing. 2/10
Rinse your hair and turn up the temperature?
Not too mention how slippery it is.
...in the wrong places
Depends on the shower set up.
One place I lived at had accessibility handles in the shower and a grippy floor, the shower head positioning and spray options kept both of us covered, and one of those heat lights that kept us both warm for the small bits that weren't in the spray. Most other places have had issues with one person not getting enough heat to stay warm, although a special shout out to the one hotel we stayed at with multiple showerheads.
I haven't run into the lubrication issue in showers or hot tubs, but also don't use condoms (monogamous relationships with other forms of birth control). Hot tubs were not public and we were very good about the water maintenance.
How easy and fast it is to cook good food. My mom acted like making real mashed potatoes was sooo difficult.
Love me some mashes taters.
Get the right kind and they basically can't overcook. I just put mine on the stove at 5pm and just do other stuff until I'm hungry, at which point I just drain the water, add butter, pepper and nutmeg and mash the potatos in about 5 minutes lol. We also get frozen creamed spinach in kind of a pellet form so that its easy to dose, throw some of that in the microwave and it's actually a solid meal. Even more so when you start playing with other things to add. I like to put some cheese in the mashed potatoes as well, especially fresh Parmesan, but I also tried adding some leftover beef stock today which was delicious. Seasoning the spinach with a little bit of nutmeg and pepper also goes a long way.
Sorry, somehow I produced a wall of text there. Thanks for coming to my ted talk or something
What comes to mind to me are two things:
The absurdity of religion. I was raised Christian but always asked tough questions, to which people responded with the various platitudes religious people love to use. (The most popular being "God works in mysterious ways.") I missed out on a lot of sexual experience and mistreated a lot of people because I was taught to behave in certain ways, and I regret it deeply.
How much I was lied to or information omitted by my educators growing up, particularly on history. I read history books for fun, and have learned over time about many things that were deliberately withheld from my education, like the Tulsa Massacre and the Battle of Blair Mountain, or stories of the Black Panthers' community building work, or the wholesale exploitation and destruction of indigenous people to make handful of people rich via the reservation system and Indian Ring.
Many adults have a much self-reflection and critical thinking skills as a 3-year-old.
Also, you can be highly intelligent yet very dumb.
Everyone wants something from you and they want it NOW, but when you need something it's like pulling teeth to even get acknowledgement.
All the adults in my life with the exception of a very few are exactly as stupid or far stupider than I thought when I was a kid.
That "adults" are just kids that got older. Same goes for "old people". Everyone was once a 14 year old. There is no dividing line where you suddenly become an adult, and there is no dividing line between being an adult and being old.
We're all born, and we live a life of days, months years, decades... it's just you and your one, single life. You're always going to be you.
Make this one life count. Don't wait. Don't procrastinate. Make shit happen. You'll regret it if you don't.
Nobody cares. You're homeless? Nobody cares. You just got dumped? Nobody cares. You're sick? Nobody cares. You're struggling? Nobody cares.
Sure you might have some friends who care in a very superficial way, but when the going gets tough, everybody leaves.
There's just no hope, and you're on your own.
You need better friends, but I don’t want to discount your feelings sometimes it is that way, and I’m sorry for it, but there are good people out there
If you'll forgive the cliche "Adulthood is realizing that Cheese is expensive and SO many people are on cocaine".
How many mundane things you have to do just to stay alive and well. Skipping things means more problems down the road. Every few years your energy capacity just lowers by 50% and you will never get it back. People often don't follow their own advice. Most people will never change because they won't want to challenge their own beliefs about themselves. Most people have rigid beliefs about the world because of the same reason.
An adult secret I love to teach kids is that none of us really know what the fuck we're doing either, we've just gotten better at winging it over the years.
The consequences of wear and tear on the body. If I'm conscious, something hurts.
That despite all the progress humanity has made, bigotry in all forms is still a major problem.
That highschool never ended for most people and the shitty cliques and drama continue for decades.
Bowling For Soup said it better than I ever could:
The whole damn world is just as obsessed
With who's the best dressed and who's havin' sex Who's got the money, who gets the honeys
Who's kinda cute and who's just a mess
And you still don't have the right look
And you don't have the right friends
Nothin' changes but the faces, the names and the trends
High school never ends
That my future is dependent on thousands of people I don't even know
It doesn't ever get better. We are stuck until we mercifully die.
No matter what I do it will always be an endless cycle of unmanageable chores and work, ever-changing medication and dumb productivity tips while I watch other people do everything effortlessly because they weren't born a disabled retard like myself. My achievements went from getting a good grade to being able to wash the dishes
Your success in life is dictated by the social connections you have and how good you are at maintaining them. When I was young I thought focusing on my education and working harder would automatically lead to a successful career, and while good academic performance does help, what's far more useful is having connections who will help you out, either through referrals or just by being a source of information about stuff you didn't know and it's easy to have some social life in school or college without much effort, because everyone meets up at a single place, as an adult socialization takes effort, cause now everyone is away living their own busy lives and it's not as easy to meet up face to face. This is why rich people like exclusive clubs so much, being able to be in the right social circles and having the ear of influential people will pay huge dividents. Also being a skilled liar is definately a very useful skill to have.
Im not worried about how the average pedestrian acts. Its totally the average driver.
Taxes.
Societies controlled by capitalists are openly trying to murder you. Nobody who survives those societies into middle age cares enough to help one another or even organize for their own betterment. Capitalists are cannibals and you can never trust them or let your guard down while they're nearby.
Every single thing anyone says or does is in self-interest.
Like, I have almost never witnessed anything contrary to it.
You mean.. mothers breastfeeding feeding their children? You mean men who find big rocks and throw them into water from heights to make a big splash? Do you mean people who donate their organs to other people? Do you mean the many artists, scientists, teachers, and basically everyone else that gets their ass out of bed every day to then put a smile on their face for other people, despite feeling existential despair inside because the last shred of reason for being has been invested in someone or something else, so they keep moving? Robin Williams?
I think we have very different ideas of what self-interest is. Namely, I think that you have confused the idea that one must suffer, or at least feel nothing, or it's not altruistic enough. That one should not enjoy acts of love, kindness, caring, giving, art, exploration... or they're secretly solipsistic. This isn't the condemnation of the world you think it is. This feels like a projection of an internal insecurity onto the greater portion of humanity.
I think most people have been guilty of thinking this at some point. Rather than feel threatened by my words or that I'm being critical of you and only you, I would ask that you do what I did when I once thought this very thought... think on if you're really willing to live the rest of your lived experience with this thought at the forefront. Not everyone gets this one right, but it could have consequences on your ability to actually 'enjoy' another human being without needing something from them to do so.
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