Post by gruntal on Feb 2, 2016 18:24:52 GMT
It's funny how the world works and if you live long enough you can see that and the how it changes. I remember going to Huntington Park as a kid in the early 1960's when it was a glamorous suburb of Los Angeles. I especially loved to see the trolley cars going down Pacific Avenue when they had the Christmas lights over the street. A few years later in 1963 I was riding those very same streetcars but at 2 AM in the morning. Sad because the next day buses would take over and I could never ride a trolley there again. I revisited the place in 1968 but the rich high rent business places weren't attracting that many customers. Huntington Park seemed to be going downhill and the crowds were fleeing. The last time I was there was around 1980. The town was now hugely populated but mainly by minorities and immigrants. The traffic was so bad I got caught in a grid lock and had a hard time just getting out and back home.
To be able to experience that - all the years and all the changes - in an instant is very melancholy to me. So many things and so many little stories any one of which was a life time to the one involved. To think of all of them simultaneously is the only way to know what really happened and that would be tremendous.
How many of us could handle that?
A person doesn't usually change all that much in a life time but there are cycles. Youthful exuberance , middle age satisfaction, old age can bring bitterness and self doubt. It doesn't have to be that way and sometimes we discover things and attitudes that change our lives. But how stunning would it be to see ourselves over the ages? Would we even recognize ourselves even if we could see us in ages past? If we could visit us in the future would we think we had changed for the better?
As above so below. I get up in the morning, have breakfast, drag myself out to walk the dogs, try to do some business during the day, play my computer games and have fun, maybe answer the phone and have a smidgen of human contact. Each elicits different emotions. Hopefully one emotion does not predominate to the exclusion of all the rest. When a beloved pet dies I can only think of one thing though until I get over the loss. Normally it all just happens and at the end of the day I give up - in a way - and go to sleep and don't really think or experience anything. It would be overwhelming if I could not do this around 8 hours a day.
And feel very smug I am in control of the instant. Right now that is all I have and understand - the moment.
To be able to experience that - all the years and all the changes - in an instant is very melancholy to me. So many things and so many little stories any one of which was a life time to the one involved. To think of all of them simultaneously is the only way to know what really happened and that would be tremendous.
How many of us could handle that?
A person doesn't usually change all that much in a life time but there are cycles. Youthful exuberance , middle age satisfaction, old age can bring bitterness and self doubt. It doesn't have to be that way and sometimes we discover things and attitudes that change our lives. But how stunning would it be to see ourselves over the ages? Would we even recognize ourselves even if we could see us in ages past? If we could visit us in the future would we think we had changed for the better?
As above so below. I get up in the morning, have breakfast, drag myself out to walk the dogs, try to do some business during the day, play my computer games and have fun, maybe answer the phone and have a smidgen of human contact. Each elicits different emotions. Hopefully one emotion does not predominate to the exclusion of all the rest. When a beloved pet dies I can only think of one thing though until I get over the loss. Normally it all just happens and at the end of the day I give up - in a way - and go to sleep and don't really think or experience anything. It would be overwhelming if I could not do this around 8 hours a day.
And feel very smug I am in control of the instant. Right now that is all I have and understand - the moment.
