I'll take "You don't know jack" for $300 Alex!

[coffeewithmrsaturn | 100]

10 hours ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

It was my experience that you wind up with more things as you get older - but they are generally different things.  

Maybe you will get lucky and won't make it that far.  Wait a minute that didn't come out right...........

You do reach a plateau where things mellow out - and you realize that things that you can't control are just that so you mellow out on those.   

.And when you get old enough you get to retire - which is a blast - if I had known how much so I would have done it decades before I did.

 

I don't mind the idea of having other things to worry about...I just don't like the idea of still being in the same situation I am now many years from now    It will feel like I didn't use my time wisely to solve the problems I had "back then" (now).

Thanks for the input!  I genuinely enjoy hearing people both older and younger than me opine so I can marinate in different perspectives.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

8 minutes ago, coffeewithmrsaturn said:

I don't mind the idea of having other things to worry about...I just don't like the idea of still being in the same situation I am now many years from now    It will feel like I didn't use my time wisely to solve the problems I had "back then" (now).

Thanks for the input!  I genuinely enjoy hearing people both older and younger than me opine so I can marinate in different perspectives.

You are indeed welcome.  Some problems take time to resolve - for example the younger you are the less money there is (obviously dependent on how much one makes) to  stretch for what sometimes seems to be infinite limits.  But with any luck the needs will slowly be resolved (although new ones will rear their ugly heads along the way).  As you learn to deal with non-money problems they will likely seem less problematic. 

One of the keys is learning to enjoy what you already have - may not be all that you want but you got those things for a reason.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Wandering Tellurian

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

10 minutes ago, coffeewithmrsaturn said:

I don't mind the idea of having other things to worry about...I just don't like the idea of still being in the same situation I am now many years from now    It will feel like I didn't use my time wisely to solve the problems I had "back then" (now).

Thanks for the input!  I genuinely enjoy hearing people both older and younger than me opine so I can marinate in different perspectives.

I worked in a nursing home for 17 years so I'm basically a 93 year old in a 39 year old's body. It's amazing what you can learn from older people if you actually listen.

[coffeewithmrsaturn | 100]

@Wandering Tellurian Do you believe that things happen "for a reason," or that things can just result from randomness?

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

5 minutes ago, coffeewithmrsaturn said:

@Wandering Tellurian Do you believe that things happen "for a reason," or that things can just result from randomness?

I know I didn't get tagged, but I would go with randomness. For everything to happen for a reason is to put too much value on one's individual importance in the universe IMO.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

4 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

o I worked in a nursing home for 17 years so I'm basically a 93 year old in a 39 year old's body. It's amazing what you can learn from older people if you actually listen.

I worked in mental hospital for a few years and spent most of that time on the geriatric wards.

There was this one patient who spent most of his time being zoned out but would occasionally be really lucid.  When he was out of it he would sometime walk along as if he were pulling something, stop, turn around and say "Whoa  Bobby".

One time while he was lucid I asked him who Bobby was.  He looked real surprised and asked how I knew about Bobby,  I said he had mentioned him in his sleep.   He then told me about how when he was little he lived on a farm and they would cut ice from the river in the winter and take it back and put in pre dug holes that they would fill in and put markers on to find in the summer so they could dig it up and put it into the icehouse.   Bobby was their horse who would pull a plow/cutter device.  His job ws to lead Bobby and stop him as needed.  I learned something I likely never would have read in a history book and he had a really happy few minutes reliving the past.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

1 minute ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

I worked in mental hospital for a few years and spent most of that time on the geriatric wards.

There was this one patient who spent most of his time being zoned out but would occasionally be really lucid.  When he was out of it he would sometime walk along as if he were pulling something, stop, turn around and say "Whoa  Bobby".

One time while he was lucid I asked him who Bobby was.  He looked real surprised and asked how I knew about Bobby,  I said he had mentioned him in his sleep.   He then told me about how when he was little he lived on a farm and they would cut ice from the river in the winter and take it back and put in pre dug holes that they would fill in and put markers on to find in the summer so they could dig it up and put it into the icehouse.   Bobby was their horse who would pull a plow/cutter device.  His job ws to lead Bobby and stop him as needed.  I learned something I likely never would have read in a history book and he had a really happy few minutes reliving the past.

Experiences like that beat out anything in a history book for me. 

[Tabonga | 2,314]

12 minutes ago, coffeewithmrsaturn said:

@Wandering Tellurian Do you believe that things happen "for a reason," or that things can just result from randomness?

I think it is a little of both - leaning more heavily towards randomness.   

I was working in a library when I met the not yet Mrs. Tellurian.  I had just started working there and everyone else went to a meeting - leaving the new fish at the circulation desk.  She was going to be a new student but didn't bring any proof of that so I couldn't check out the books to her (being a private school we had no public patrons policy in place).  She later did her work study in the library where the rest is history.  Too bizarre to just be totally random.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

2 minutes ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

I think it is a little of both - leaning more heavily towards randomness.   

I was working in a library when I met the not yet Mrs. Tellurian.  I had just started working there and everyone else went to a meeting - leaving the new fish at the circulation desk.  She was going to be a new student but didn't bring any proof of that so I couldn't check out the books to her (being a private school we had no public patrons policy in place).  She later did her work study in the library where the rest is history.  Too bizarre to just be totally random.

I still stick with random. The odds of winning the lottery are random even if they are minimal. For things to "happen for a reason" in my view requires some kind of intervention from a source that may or may not exist.

[coffeewithmrsaturn | 100]

15 minutes ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

I think it is a little of both - leaning more heavily towards randomness.   

I was working in a library when I met the not yet Mrs. Tellurian.  I had just started working there and everyone else went to a meeting - leaving the new fish at the circulation desk.  She was going to be a new student but didn't bring any proof of that so I couldn't check out the books to her (being a private school we had no public patrons policy in place).  She later did her work study in the library where the rest is history.  Too bizarre to just be totally random.

You underestimate your charm...that's not bizarre at all.  I bet she did her work study there to get closer to that handsome no-nonsense circulation desk employee  

I imagine you saying something like "sorry, but here we do things by the book" as you point around to indicate that you are literally by the books, and the future Mrs. Tellurian going weak in the knees at such an agile display of word play.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

27 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I still stick with random. The odds of winning the lottery are random even if they are minimal. For things to "happen for a reason" in my view requires some kind of intervention from a source that may or may not exist.

Part of the story was that I was wearing a mickey rat (a somewhat obscure underground comic character) shirt and she comment on it since she was familiar with him - which set up interest on my part.  We just happened to share that interest - not much but it was a start.  Coincidnece -maybe.

I am an agnostic so I generally don't think of there being guiding hand(s)  behind everything.   But even if you believe in a really mechanistic (in terms of everything being directly caused by other things) world sometimes you have to wonder about the intricate chains that get built up in a causal event.   Sometimes things happen that really defy the mathmatical odds.

One time I went over to a friend's who was replacing a clutch/pressure plate.  So I crawled under (he had already pulled the old one) with him to put the new one in place. We tried for several minutes and it just wouldn't fit.  We crawled back out and while we were comparing the two the car rolled backwards off the improvised jackstands.  Why it didn't do it while we were under there wiggling the plate around I don't know,  (Another friend (whose car it actually was had jacked it up and blocked under the front end) ,my first friend didn't check it very well and I assumed everything was ok since I came in much later. It turned out the clutch plate was the wrong one.  The clerk at the store when we returned it was apologetic but very surprised to get a six pack of beer,  

Too weird to be just coincidence - doesn't mean there was a guiding hand behind it but it certainly gives a person pause.

Edited December 15, 2019 by Wandering Tellurian

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

1 minute ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

Part of the story was that I was wearing a mickey rat (a somewhat obscure underground comic character) and she comment on it since she was familiar with him - which set up interest on my part.  We just happened to share that interest - not much but it was a start.  Coincidnece -maybe.

I am an agnostic soI generally don't think of there being guiding hand(s)  behind everything.   But even if you believe in a really mechanistic (in terms of everything being directly caused by other things) world sometimes you have to wonder about the intricate chains that get built up in a causal event.   Sometimes things happen thatreally defy the mathmatical odds.

One time I went over to a friend's who was replalcing a clutch/pressure plate.  So I crawled under (he had already pulled the old one) with him to put the new in place. We tried for several minutes and it just wouldn't fit.  We crawled back out and while we were comparing the two the car rolled backwards off the imporvised jackstands.  Why it didn't do it while we wereunderthere wiggling the plate around I don't know,  (Another friend (whose car it actually was had jacked it up and blocked under the front end) ,my first friend didn't check it very well and I assumed everything was ok since I came in much later. It turned out the clutch plate was the wrongone.  The clerk at the store when we returned it was apologetic but very surpirsed to get a six pack of beer,  

Too weird to be just coincidence - doesn't mean there was a guidiong hand behind it but it certainly gives a person pause.

I would pause too, but still go with it being an extremely rare coincidence. That's what makes the world an interesting place.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

4 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I would pause too, but still go with it being an extremely rare coincidence. That's what makes the world an interesting place.

Rare oi not I likely wouldn't be here if it hadn';t happened.

And I suspect almost being the victim gives me a much more intense reflection on the matter.  

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

7 minutes ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

Rare oi not I likely wouldn't be here if it hadn';t happened.

And I suspect almost being the victim gives me a much more intense reflection on the matter.  

What else is life if not a collection of personal experiences open to interpretation?  I'm not sure how we didn't cross paths more often in my 8 years on the old site. I'm enjoying the discussions. My old job was never work, because I enjoyed it every day.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

1 hour ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

What else is life if not a collection of personal experiences open to interpretation?  I'm not sure how we didn't cross paths more often in my 8 years on the old site. I'm enjoying the discussions. My old job was never work, because I enjoyed it every day.

They kept me in a cell in the back room most of the time.

 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

2 hours ago, Wandering Tellurian said:

They kept me in a cell in the back room most of the time.

 

Between the Twilight Zone and the wrestling thread I can only leave this here.

[Tabonga | 2,314]

@Bearcat-Doug

I am just going to take it for granted that you also liked the Alfred Hitchcock Presents show and The Naked City.    Those two  and the original Twilight Zone form my holy troika of the best screenwriting in the history of television.  

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Wandering Tellurian