The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
Things you take for granted (a thread for those with a sense of wonder)
joshofalltrades
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
Class TraitorSmoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
I just had a weird moment, similar to other weird moments that I experience periodically.
It was a mundane thing, really, adjusting my glasses for a moment so I could more easily see my television screen to read some text in a game I was playing. Wait a second, glasses? Game? TV?
I mean, the whole thing really stopped me in my tracks for a second as my sense of wonder took hold. The things that happen to us every day are marvelous. It's unreal how even basic things we use to go about our lives affect us. We notice them acutely when they're gone; if I can't find my glasses my world is put on hold while I search. But when they're readily available, we just take them as a given.
Of the three things I listed above, I'd like to focus (heh) on my glasses. I don't even want to imagine what life would have been like without a way to correct my vision. Constantly shoving things up against my face so I could see them clearly, squinting, headaches... and being unable to read comfortably is the kicker. Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes! I couldn't make do without a good... book...
Hey, there was once a time when literacy rates were so low that people who could read even one language were in the minority. By, like, a lot. Nowadays we say to ourselves as we eat food that was first imagined half a world away that we would really like to work on that second language and maybe live in that country for a year or so, as an adventure or as an experience before we kick the bucket for good.
Except that food wouldn't be in our mouths without technological advances that made travel and instant communication mundane. And the possibility of living in another country would have been more like an unattainable fantasy only a (relatively, in the grand scheme of things) very short time ago.
Flight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4
So tell me what you're absolutely amazed about the existence of. There is so much in our lives that makes our short time so worthwhile and we just go, "Ehhhh."
It was a mundane thing, really, adjusting my glasses for a moment so I could more easily see my television screen to read some text in a game I was playing. Wait a second, glasses? Game? TV?
I mean, the whole thing really stopped me in my tracks for a second as my sense of wonder took hold. The things that happen to us every day are marvelous. It's unreal how even basic things we use to go about our lives affect us. We notice them acutely when they're gone; if I can't find my glasses my world is put on hold while I search. But when they're readily available, we just take them as a given.
Of the three things I listed above, I'd like to focus (heh) on my glasses. I don't even want to imagine what life would have been like without a way to correct my vision. Constantly shoving things up against my face so I could see them clearly, squinting, headaches... and being unable to read comfortably is the kicker. Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes! I couldn't make do without a good... book...
Hey, there was once a time when literacy rates were so low that people who could read even one language were in the minority. By, like, a lot. Nowadays we say to ourselves as we eat food that was first imagined half a world away that we would really like to work on that second language and maybe live in that country for a year or so, as an adventure or as an experience before we kick the bucket for good.
Except that food wouldn't be in our mouths without technological advances that made travel and instant communication mundane. And the possibility of living in another country would have been more like an unattainable fantasy only a (relatively, in the grand scheme of things) very short time ago.
Flight?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dYS7PcAG4So tell me what you're absolutely amazed about the existence of. There is so much in our lives that makes our short time so worthwhile and we just go, "Ehhhh."
+4
Posts
My contacts are pretty goddamn incredible when I think about it.
Once I put them in my eyes I can't even tell they're there (unless I accidentally fall asleep for an hour and OH GOD THEY'RE STUCK TO MY EYE AAAAAAA)
That lasted about a month, I think, before being normal. But every now and then I get meta and think about how weird it is that I no longer find that weird.
We have the technology to talk across the globe and everyone uses glorified telegrams.
I hate texting. I miss talking to people on the phone.
I will take people texting over the way they used to answer the phone at the turn of the century.
If I get really lonely I call someone.
That's a rare event. I am grateful for the instant telegram technology.
Offa my lawn, the lot of you!
"Hello"?
Getting up in the middle of your conversation with them and walking away. "I have to take this" being the only excuse. Talking loudly to someone who's not there in places where you shouldn't be talking that loudly at all.
Fucking cel phones turned people into goddamn animals. It's a wonder anyone escaped the post-90s without a punch in the nose.
Oh, you're like me. Not a problem with talking on the phone so much as a dislike for assholes
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Snow, motes of dust floating through a ray of light, and pill bugs.
Each of these things absolutely blew my kids minds.
You never really think about a time when you didn't know about that stuff, but having kids brought back a focus on that kind of stuff.
Now I find myself watching specks of dust slowly floating by the blinds. I'll move an old flower pot so I can watch my son get excited to see what bugs may be under there.
Smelling the flowers is the best you guys.
Do it more often.
It's way better than what I was doing before, with way better hours and basically way better everything, but I'm immediately looking at the next step and how it will be better.
There are still times I work nights, but not as late and less frequency. The pay is better, and I can wear what I want to work, and I'm in an office instead of a crowded shop. Lots of people at Disney would kill to have my job, so I really shouldn't complain.
Then I trip over the cat.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
GG, this is actually how I answer my phone.
No lie sir.
Last winter our pipes froze twice. Also there was a do not drink advisory this summer because of toxic algea.
I like having running water.
It also amazes me we can now use "turn of the century" to describe a time from our personal past.
Honestly it was kind of weird using it, myself.
Yeah, we're not unringing that bell. I try not to look at my phone if I'm with someone else and I put it on silent, but even I find myself breaking that rule occasionally if I am expecting an important text or if the person I'm with is someone I can't stand but we're in the same place due to circumstances forcing the proximity.
Technology is amazing!
This is even before bringing technology and electricity into the mix, just how basic materials are processed. How a house is built insulated or windows that are actually clear or even explaining how many things are made of materials we can't even begin to explain to people from two thousand years ago.
This. We had no water in our house for 36 hours last week due to a burst main. Nothing else makes you more aware of how much you take for granted that you can get clean, safe drinking water which is essential for life just by turning on a tap in the next room. Fucking magic, and it epitomises how good we have it in this country.
Having disposable paper to clean said poop
sadly despite all our technology and all of our science, we have yet to perfect the reliable no-wipe poop
A bidet?
eugh
What makes a bidet gross and sticking your hand down there and vigorously wiping with a piece of paper not gross?
Like, I can take ink and scratch a series of symbols on to a piece of tree and then it can store meaning across space and time to be decoded by someone else later. It's kind of crazy.
On the topic of Japanese bidets they weren't like, awful or anything but after using one I just had a wet butt and had to wipe to dry off anyway and then I would just get wet toilet paper fragments on my butt. It didn't really seem to help the overall process that much.
Being able to make post while pooping in something I take for granted.'