Things Only Time Can Teach

[puff_not_snuff]

The number one thing I would say that only time can teach, meaning that no teacher or grandparent or such is ever able to get through, is how time fast time goes by. How many times in youth had an older person told you "time flies" or such, only to roll your eyes at them.

File this under: "mid-life crisis moments".

 

[Andriko]

It has taught me patience, amongst other things.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Kids speed up your time continuum. They go from diapers to college at a sprinter’s pace, and they drag you along with them. Best scenario… don’t have kids!

 

[anotherbob]

The number one thing I would say that only time can teach, meaning that no teacher or grandparent or such is ever able to get through, is how time fast time goes by. How many times in youth had an older person told you "time flies" or such, only to roll your eyes at them.

File this under: "mid-life crisis moments".

seriously 16-18 took longer then 20 to 40.

 

[ashdigger]

It has taught me that I used to be a people person, but people ruined it.

 

[anotherbob]

It has taught me that I used to be a people person, but people ruined it.

I don't see it. Then again I've always assumed you are a dingo who was part of intelligence boasting experiment who escaped the lab and moved to Las Vegas. Or the other guys here might be puling my leg, but they did seem sincere.

 

[ashdigger]

I don't see it. Then again I've always assumed you are a dingo who was part of intelligence boasting experiment who escaped the lab and moved to Las Vegas. Or the other guys here might be puling my leg, but they did seem sincere.

I’m definitely an escaped dingo, I honestly thought that was OUR secret. See, one more thing ruined.

 

[anotherbob]

I’m definitely an escaped dingo, I honestly thought that was OUR secret. See, one more thing ruined.

Us ferals we gotta stick together, unless there is a steak involved and then it's each beast for him self.

 

[kg.legat0]

Time has taught me that time itself can be elastic ...I can't agree enough that kids speed things up and that 20-40 seems to happen in the blink of an eye (I am currently 38) ...my last few hours of work today, though - an eternity! lol

 

[brian64]

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time (plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines). Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.

 

[puff_not_snuff]

seriously 16-18 took longer then 20 to 40.

This is true and truly perplexing, although I feel like my 20s went by rather slowly, but 30 to 40+... my god, where did those years disappear to?

@cosmicfolklore I don't have kids or plan to but I do wonder how having them effects a person's perception of time passing, I imagine that watching kids grow up sort of marks the years in a tangible way, but without them it's like you wake up one day and you are suddenly on your way to old.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

A few years ago, an old college buddy and I were talking about this. He was like, “If I had it all to do over again, I’d have slept with more women and would be less reluctant to try new things.”
I was like, “screw that, I’d kick, claw, punch, and fight my way through harder.”
I’ve experienced sex, and it’s nice, but when you’re on your last leg, a well used dick aint gonna pay for your old age, comfort, and health in the last days. For that matter, kids aren’t going to either.

 

[TheIronMonkey]

I’ve experienced sex, and it’s nice, but when you’re on your last leg, a well used dick aint gonna pay for your old age, comfort, and health in the last days. For that matter, kids aren’t going to either.

This needs to be your new signature.

 

[sablebrush52]

Time is a great teacher. So many lessons. Here are a couple.

People are loath to give up an unearned advantage.

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make political.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I read sometimes where someone says that in the last breath of life no one wishes that they’d have worked harder. I say bullshit. Tell that to the guy dying alone on the street on a cold and rainy night.

 

[mso489]

Time moves so slowly for an infant or kid. At two years old, a year is half your lifetime. A month or two feels like a year. Every other thing you encounter is an entirely new experience, and it seems like every day is packed with surprising discoveries.

When you hit senior status, you barely get the Christmas stuff put away before you're getting it out again. People you remember as toddlers graduate from college and get married in what seems like a few months.

So time is ever changing.

Likewise, I'm skeptical that development in life is progress per se. I think we trade off the fresh revelations of childhood for the shear exuberance and sensation of adolescence (ecstasy and heartbreak), into the grandeur of new adulthood, and the status of being middle aged, into the knowing confidence of age, and so on. But all the way you trade off the wonders of one time of life for the next, losing much and gaining much along the way. You don't get better and better, just fulsome in the possibilities of each time of life.

 

[anotherbob]

Time has taught me that time itself can be elastic ...I can't agree enough that kids speed things up and that 20-40 seems to happen in the blink of an eye (I am currently 38) ...my last few hours of work today, though - an eternity! lol

i use the term thick. that last ten minutes of work is so thick.

 

[puff_not_snuff]

Time moves so slowly for an infant or kid. At two years old, a year is half your lifetime. A month or two feels like a year. Every other thing you encounter is an entirely new experience, and it seems like every day is packed with surprising discoveries.

When you hit senior status, you barely get the Christmas stuff put away before you're getting it out again. People you remember as toddlers graduate from college and get married in what seems like a few months.

So time is ever changing.

Likewise, I'm skeptical that development in life is progress per se. I think we trade off the fresh revelations of childhood for the shear exuberance and sensation of adolescence (ecstasy and heartbreak), into the grandeur of new adulthood, and the status of being middle aged, into the knowing confidence of age, and so on. But all the way you trade off the wonders of one time of life for the next, losing much and gaining much along the way. You don't get better and better, just fulsome in the possibilities of each time of life.

Your post reminded me of this lovely yet sad poem by A.E. Housman.

​

How clear, how lovely bright, How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play; How heaven laughs out with glee Where, like a bird set free, Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day. To-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more; Days lost, I know not how, I shall retrieve them now; Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before. Ensanguining the skies How heavily it dies Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.​

 

[kcghost]

The hardest lesson I learned is that sooner or later your "friends" will turn on you. Never would have believed it.

 

[brian64]

A day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days. Does this mean you would need 81 days of sleep every night?