Growing up really does suck

[pirate flayer]

Miserable as a youth, miserable in my middle age. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and accidentally hit a prostitute in the guts again and say I'm gonna be miserable in my old age as well.

 

[skykiii]

Ah, there’s a solution to this. You have children. And then you get to do all the fun things and relive the daft fun things. You get to buy Lego ‘for the children’ (of course!) and you get to be a kid again.

I'm revisiting this thread and with developments earlier this year it strikes me all over again how retarded this is.

So here's what happened: for some reason, someone dumped a cat in my yard. The cat is clearly a house cat, as its friendly and rubs up to people... but its also a needy little bastard. I think roughly every four hours it meows wanting food.

And thing is... if I don't get enough sleep, I spend the day either miserable or depressed (sometimes ideating self-harm). So now I have this little furball who pretty much ensures that this is gonna be my day. Also lately something's happened in my body so moving around too much actually causes me pain, which doesn't make it any easier to deal with an energetic animal.

And you think me dealing with babies would make me happy?

.... Okay, to be fair, when I'm visiting family and friends I do sometimes enjoy hanging with their kids and showing them fun things (especially when they wind up liking something I liked as a kid). But I can already tell it would get irritating having to hang around them 24 hours a day.

Still, it really feels like everyone who said that isn't really thinking for themselves--they're just repeating what someone else told them. A universal constant with humanity is 90% of people don't think, they just parrot. And parrots exist to make people like me miserable when they get the stock-canned answer and immediately know its fucking bullshit.

Willing to bet every single person in this thread who gave the canned "have children! It will make you feel better!" advice does not actually have children of their own.

 

[Otterly]

And thing is... if I don't get enough sleep, I spend the day either miserable or depressed (sometimes ideating self-harm).

Two of mine were the kind of sleepers who don’t. Woke up at least once an hour for almost five years between the two of them.
Yeah, you suffer with it.
Having kids isn’t for everyone. Don’t do it if you don’t want to. All children deserve to be wanted and loved.
I dont think there is a magic solution. Life can be hard and quite depressing sometimes.
Cats are bottomless pits for food. Feed it when it should be fed and ignore it otherwise or you’re training it to bother you constantly. mine could have won an Oscar for best actor, starving category, OH WOE IS ME I HAVE NOT BEEN FED (for two hours now…)
You clearly like the cat though, if you took it in. Does it have a chip?

 

[skykiii]

You clearly like the cat though, if you took it in. Does it have a chip?

No it does not, as far as I'm aware.

I have a weakness for cute things. Fortunately, other cats that turn up aren't people-friendly so I can only look at them from a distance, this was the first that was at all cuddly.

 

[Fek]

Comparison is the thief of joy, friend.

Who taught you that adulthood had to be some kind of horrible thing? Where did your ideas originate from? Were they truly how you feel, or have you adopted a mask stitched together through several other suggestions placed before you to consume? Watching what one thinks is just like watching what one eats, only far more important.

Adulthood is awesome. Life is awesome. Each year presents you with the chance to become a yet more put together iteration of your unique self. A wholly unique you that not one single other soul out there can be. Know thyself through your own personal experience, and do not choose to hold yourself back because of any excuse placed before you which you'd previously choose to embody.

You're so much more than that. Everyone reading this is.

 

[skykiii]

Who taught you that adulthood had to be some kind of horrible thing?

It was one of the less-good aspects of how people used to think in the 1980s and 1990s... and which you still see parroted today, like in @The Ugly One 's post earlier in this very thread.

Nowadays, people are more open to the idea that this image of "adulthood" is kinda shit. Basically, people like that think that adulthood is enforced conformity to things that are honestly kind of miserable. To refer to the above linked post, so being "an adult" is taking your woman to music halls to sit and listen to music--something you can easily do at home? And adults should always wear uncomfortable, impractical outfits (that might be hard or impractical to get off if, say, you eat something that disagrees with you and it sets off an allergy)?

I also can't help but find myself thinking of the Penn and Teller: Bullshit episode "The Best" when looking at those images... in that episode, Penn and Teller did a test where they served gas station food and tap water at a deluxe restaurant to see if people could genuinely tell the difference between that and actual high-quality food. The result? They couldn't.

Which makes sense--I myself have no idea how the steak made at a five-star restaurant could possibly be that much better than the steak I make at home. They're made the same way, after all.

And that's how that image of adulthood is, really: a lot of times its the same shit you liked as a kid, just gussied up a bit so you can pretend its different.

"Adults don't drink Kool-aid, they drink wine! Which is just Kool-aid that tastes shit and can make you act retarded if you have too much of it!"

"Adults don't eat candy, they smoke cigarettes!"

"Adults don't play video games, they gamble with real money and end up going into debt with the Mafia!"

"Adults don't read about space ships or battling monsters, they read about sex and politics!"

So on and so forth.

Like I said back then--gee, thanks Kiwis for basically proving my opening post is 100% justified. Responses like that one are basically "you're correct, but you need to gaslight yourself into thinking its a good thing." But I'm willing to bet the guy who is bitter about "people who won't put away GI Joes" (which there's an adult equivalent of that too--war re-enactments) is himself a miserable fuck who does not really have a wife or kids, or if he does his relationship with them is not as good as he wants to believe.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

Evidently my childhood wasn't nearly as compelling as yours. It was fine, but not something I pine for decades later.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

First thing is that Most the supposed "advantages" of being an adult are bullshit. The thing I always hear is being an adult is cool because you get freedom and can do whatever you want because you have a car so you don't need your parents to drive you everywhere. Except in my experience that isn't what happens--first off, you need to be able to afford a car, then get a license to use it, and nowadays you also need insurance. Besides which, as an adult you have responsibilities you didn't have as a kid, and shirking them means losing money.

You think of freedom in terms of positive liberties: freedom in the sense that you have the empowerment to actively carry out your goals. Other people think in terms of negative liberties: freedom from artificial restraints against carrying out your goals. One is being carried to the finish line, the other is being allowed in the race. Your Constitutional freedoms are an example of negative liberties; the Four Freedoms of FDR (which included things like "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear") are positive liberties.

I'm not saying which is a better way to view the world (I am: it's negative liberties), but it may be helpful to explicitly frame things in these terms.

That's the other thing. Having a source of income is cool, and way better than an allowance... too bad most of it is gonna go to bills and shit, or if you're married (thankfully I'm not) gonna go to the wife and kids. And the stuff you get to keep, you feel you have to save just in case something comes up. So much for those dreams of getting that game you always wanted!

Well yeah, most of it does, but depending on how much you make it doesn't really matter.

Most of your income goes to keep you alive. What's left over is gravy. But to give an example from my life, I was never a materialistic person and I was a very conscientious one. I put way more thought into how I spent my parent's money than they ever would have on the same things. Through college I lived off them (they considered it okay as I was a full time student - I once ran 22 hours in violation of university policy - but frankly I should have had a real job), and I still very rarely spent money, except on restaurants (that they actually did have to smack me about, because when I first moved away I paid no attention to that and blew money real fast for a few months).

Now that I have been living on my own salary for a few years in graduate school, subsidized in a few important regards but responsible for my own rent, utilities, food, gasoline, entertainment, car repairs - I have acquired the demon of acquisitiveness, enough that I got dissatisfied with it recently. Spending is an appetite and an appetite is a muscle, the more you exercise it the bigger it gets. But one of the big things is I never would have gotten like that if it wasn't for it having been my own salary.

That's the second thing: By the time you're an adult, nothing you liked will be around anymore.

This genuinely sucks, in the sense that people move away, or just move on with their lives, the scenery changes so even cities you like are transformed in subtle but disgusting ways, I hate it.

If you're lucky you'll find something new you like, but from here it's always kind of transitory, just another thing to keep you distracted. I sometimes think people go into politics or become sex-obsessed simply to fill the void once they realize their dreams have become meaningless.

You sound like you're depressed.

And here's probably the most controversial thing I'll say today:

I hate how, as an adult, everything becomes about sex in some way.

The proof is in the pudding here--just look at the topic titles here on Deep Thoughts: for every one definitely-not-sex topic, there's like twenty that are all about sex.

That's because we're all faggot virgin nerds. Nobody is getting any and if they say they are they're lying.

And here's another test: if you have any particularly creative friends, try to remember (or dig up, if they wrote it down) things they made up before they hit puberty. Now compare it to the things post-puberty. I can almost guarantee pre-puberty will have a lot of just wild stories that do insane things that show a genuine enthusiasm, creativity, and energy (even when they're clearly aping at-the-time popular media)... meanwhile post-puberty, suddenly alternate universes, crystal planets, or mysterious magical phenomenon take a back seat to inventing situations where girls get naked or end up having sex with totally-not-a-self-insert.

There's people that still write about crystal planets and that other bullshit. They make children's media. Now, there's a bit of a problem with a bunch of developmentally stunted perverts writing children' shows to be about their gay sexual relationships, but traditionally, people that like childlike whimsy continue to like childlike whimsy.

And I just know I'm gonna get accused of being a prude, because how dare I say your kid was more creative when he was writing stories about Mr Clean fighting Xenomorphs and that he went sharply downhill when he suddenly decided he was more interested in writing about Minerva Mink being kidnapped and sold into sex slavery! I know, I'm such a cad for suggesting this direction might be inferior or something. (Those are both hypothetical examples, by the way... though it would not surprise me if the Minerva Mink thing actually happened).

Anyway, that's my rant.

What the fuck? I didn't really expect this twist to your rant.

 

[skykiii]

What the fuck? I didn't really expect this twist to your rant.

Yeah, its kind of out of place. Thing is experience on the internet taught me that people don't like it when you criticize sex, even in a minor way. I felt sure I would get the same here (and I kinda did).

Evidently my childhood wasn't nearly as compelling as yours. It was fine, but not something I pine for decades later.

"Compelling" is likely subjective. If you got to view my life somehow, you might not see it as very remarkable. In fact I missed out on a lot of experiences that apparently other people got to have. My family was never rich and a lot of points I lived in a trailer.

And I wouldn't change a thing about it. In some ways circumstances collided to put me in unique positions. To use a lighter example: a lot of people say Disney owned their childhood--Disney certainly existed in mine, but I wound up way more influenced by weird anime and Euro animation that a company called Just For Kids Video put out. Most of it you likely have never heard of, but it was mostly sold in dollar stores, hence why I saw a lot of it.

There's people that still write about crystal planets and that other bullshit. They make children's media.

Why can't these kinds of stories ever be written with teens or adults in mind? They used to be (Lovecraft, Asimov etc. weren't children's authors... all the time, anyway) so why is it now strictly the domain of the kiddies?

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

The original Twilight Zone had several episodes that dealt with nostalgia. Episodes where people wanted to relive some part of their lives, to become young again and do things over. The best episode, in my opinion, was Walking Distance, which was based on show creator Rod Serling's own childhood hometown:

I find I don't want to be a kid again as much as I want to be young, healthy, have healthy parents, and no job again. There were plenty of things in my childhood that I hated: getting bullied by peers, being unable to travel anywhere I couldn't walk, getting no respect because of my age, being bored in school. I would like to have better health, more time, receive guidance in helping define and achieve my goals, and I'd like to live in a better place than Clown World, where it's becoming increasingly harder to live on my own. Some of these things I can do something about, some of them I can't.

I do also hate how sexualized everything is, because people think of sex as a rite of passage to adulthood or as a source of status. Democrats are also trying to push degeneracy as a way to promote their own politics, especially onto the young. Young people are horny and want to do popular thing, so they lap that shit right up.

 

[GunCar Gary]

it’s a year later and every single post you make sounds like a whiny angsty teen @skykiii , despite claiming that you’re a man in your 30s

have you ever gotten your testosterone levels checked? the hormones in your body regulate the way that you think and the things that you prioritize and there are several medical conditions that can cause low testosterone in men that cause these types of problems. you might want to get a check up

and get your serotonin levels tested while you’re at it

 

[Kiwisee]

Sounds like somebody needs to make a road trip. Destination doesn’t even need to be anything fancy, you could just go to the next town over and go sight seeing there. In my experience, visiting random bumfuck towns leads to befriending locals.

Going out to the woods for a few hours also helps put things into perspective. Or just going for a walk all around town can be pretty exciting if you go down a path you’ve never taken before.

 

[skykiii]

@GunCar Gary what would having my testosterone and serotonin levels checked accomplish?

 

[Neighborhood Curmudgeon]

I disagree. Growing up is awesome! I hated my youth. My life isn't perfect, but I'm better off than when I was a kid, teenager, or even a young adult. Life makes more sense to me now. I feel like I have more agency, more freedom, and more independence. I'd rather be an adult going to work than a kid going to school.

 

[Lobster Cult High Priest]

That’s why you have kids and eventually grandkids so you can experience it again but through a different Lense

 

[GunCar Gary]

@GunCar Gary what would having my testosterone and serotonin levels checked accomplish?

low testosterone prevents you from being competitive, wanting to compete for mates, and makes you passive and depressed

low serotonin prevents you from enjoying anything in life and makes you a miserable and nihilistic sad sack

these attributes, which you seem to have all of from your limited amount of posts in this thread, can come from both mental and physical sources. you should rule out the potential physical problems before focusing on the potential mental problems

 

[skykiii]

That’s why you have kids and eventually grandkids so you can experience it again but through a different Lense

Still getting responses like this after I said this? Maybe you just didn't see that post.

 

[Town Drunk]

I ain't reading all this shit from a necroed post. I would never want to be a child again.

I like having my own independance, the wisdom I've gained, having others rely on me. There is a mindset of people who want to be taken care of and told what to do all the time. It's safe, it's easy, and it's risky. What if they are actually retarded, and obeying without question is bad?

I also think the time I grew up is peak, and have reasons, but you can't roll back the clock.

A = A. It will always equal A, no matter how much you don't want it to, or think it shouldn't. You have to deal with it.

Sorry to ruin your pity post, but if you aren't trying to live your best life and just mourning what you thought was your peak years you will never be happy. You are not getting the days you spend doing this back either.

 

[DSHK]

My childhood sucked, I don't miss it at all. I regret missing out on so much but thats all.

 

[YHWH's Strongest Soldier]

@skykiii Come back to this thread when you actually grow up, OP. All your posts make you seem like a whiny faggot.

Also, imagine peaking as a toddler. That's fucking grim, OP.