That you are getting old when you delete another five people from your Christmas card list. RIP friends.
Realisation.: That you are getting old... - Atrial Fibrillati...
Realisation.
BobDVolunteer
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BobD
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Yes, I've had a series of funerals to attend this autumn 
We all know we're going to go but it's not nice to be reminded of it so often!
Alas yes, but we are also culling a few youngsters who we email regularly in order to reduce the strain on the trees!! (and who don't send cards)
Yes, it can be a sad time of the year as well as joyful. When you consider this world and see the deterioration of mankind and the evil that prevails, do you not probably think your friends might just be in a far, far better place? RIP is just that. Wishing you a joyful, and happy Christmas and to thank you for the great help and reassurance you give to all. Best wishes.
I suppose I do sometimes think that it is just as well so and so did not live to see this or that but by and large many of the people we actually know are very kind. Certainly many of our friends do not understand the mental frailty of many of the vociferous young who appear to have lost the art of true debating and who are so unprepared for life as to need protecting from some Shakespeare etc. I hate listening to the news nowadays - so much suffering and unkindness about which I can do nothing. Our poor planet. Still Carpe Diem.
I don't listen much to the news either. It's too depressing and I don't trust the MSM. Lots of it is owned by billionaires and so called independents like the Guardian and Le Monde get large sums of money from people like Bill Gates. The politicians seem to be of a very poor quality - dim and venal. I am glad I am old and will not see the world to come . AI will not benefit mankind in the end - it will simply usher in one more of like 1984.
I think we should all try to ‘look on the bright side of life’ and be a bit more upbeat. The world is still a beautiful place. There is still a lot of kindness about and do remember that bad news is Newsworthy whereas good news scarcely gets a mention.
I do that by trying to ignore the news! Personally I am very happy with a lot to be grateful for though I wouldn't mind swapping my creaky skeleton for a younger less painful model! But I feel my generation of post war baby boomers in the West saw the best of what was on offer and life is in some ways much harder for younger generations. Materially easier in some ways but their expectations are different and shaped more by all encompassing forces like social media ( toxic in many ways). That is why I am glad I am old. I feel I don't fit in very well with the world today and tomorrow' s even less.
I think we would all like to have younger bodies. Don’t forget the opportunities for the young in fields like bio engineering, microbes digesting plastics, and mind blowing knowledge of the Universe and Everything, plate tectonics and green energy, knowledge of the wood wide web - I could go on - are so interesting and not available to us in our day. There is a wealth of knowledge out there with much more to come - a lot of it via the wwweb. How interesting it all is.
Opportunities for the intelligent . What are the rest going to do with more low skilled jobs being done by machines? I don't think that has been thought through very well.
I should think that we will still need gardeners, plumbers, welders, brick layers carers doctors and nurses etc. A whole myriad of workers.
Computer coding doesn’t require a huge level of intelligence madge. You just need to learn it early. It’s a problem for sure but it has always been whenever a new level of tech has been introduced. The hardest problem with ai is getting them to operate in real world space so jobs like granny e mentions are under no threat as it stands. Not saying they wont be in the future but we usually figure it out and if we can’t, once ai goes general it certainly will. If it doesn’t kill us all first 😆 either way it’ll be exciting.
Yes it's sobering especially doing local ones of friends and neighbours and you walk past houses you used to put cards in.
I used to know so many people in the village and now I know relatively few. Our Christmas card list is shrinking rapidly.
Some older friend of ours used to say they knew they were getting old by the amount of funerals they went to as well sadly both are gone now as well but not heart related.
Sending a hug 🤗 - in the address book for a limited time but in hearts and memories forever - I always look upwards every year and wish all family and friends happy Xmas, birthday and so one and believe a smile comes back and a kiss is blown in on every breeze to brighten our day just at the thought x
Sad but true.
Oh dear,thats a bit grim. Sorry to see that. Xx
yes Bob sadly friends are passing as we all get older. I heard a song on Ellen’s show last year called Memories by Adam Levine. We celebrate with the ones around us and the ones we have lost along the way. Our memories keep them all with us. Apparently he wrote the song after losing someone very close. You can find it on Ellen’s YouTube
My head is populated by so many friends who are no longer here. My garden is in a way of a memorial to some. This plant was given to me as a cutting. That plant was a root etc. Our Christmas card list is shrinking - partly because I write Christmas emails to many friends (takes longer than actual cards but I find typing easier with my arthritic fingers than holding a pen) but partly because they are no longer with us. My husband and I are now the oldest in our families and have been for quite a while. Still we are lucky to both be here.
It’s so very sad isn’t it ? I find that I’m keeping checking with people that I haven’t heard from in a while , just in case …..🙏💗🙏
So very true. Extremely upsetting but a sad reality.
My dear husband died suddenly this year, as you can imagine I am struggling to get this new life together. The national and world future is worrying too. My world seems to have shrunk. I do still want the life I have left to count. It might just be that I enjoy the things I do, am kind to friends, sign a petition , make people laugh and have a happy time….etc. My children …I have six, four are adopted, need me and are so kind. I am sad but have a lot to live for. So lots of love to all of you. Let’s try and enjoy the life we have xx
Absolutely agree,be grateful for what you have,all I know is I've got a lot more than my mum and dad ever had,the more people have the more they want,it's human nature.
that’s true ronnieboy, and there seems to be a attitude of bigger the better etc.? I’m lucky because my parents had nothing when I was a child but taught me to respect things and respect other people and be kind to others and take time for those who are worse off than you too.
I live in a small house and drive a 20 year old car and think myself lucky. Most of My work colleagues live in big houses and drive new expensive cars but still feel the need to anchor for more etc.? They tell me I can afford a bigger house and a new car.!! I say maybe? but I’m happy with my lot and that’s what matters in life.👍
well I like jacquielawson.com cards
One of the few benefits of age is of course wisdom and not being afraid to speak out. I have sensed for years now pre-Covid that I will be protesting on the streets (never previously been done!) - I have warned my wife 😂. Currently, however I am wrestling with how I have a balanced risk/reward conversation with the younger members of the family on a particular recent vaccine & connected personal freedoms; they have no time to look at both sides of the argument but yet are still convinced their decision is right. So long story short, I would say there is plenty to do before moving to the next parish...please 🙏 join me on the streets.
Agreed, street protests are not my choice but if I can find a peaceful and respecting all demo then I see this as my best choice at present to draw attention to the 'greater forces for evil'.
The best way to protest is for everyone to ditch their smart phones. That's the only way this will stop and we all know that will never happen (Sadly)
This is the Trojan horse disguised as a health app
us humans won’t reign long.!!!! The time when animals dominate the planet again for millions of years will one day return I’m sure. Modern humans only been around for a couple seconds on the life clock and all we’ve done is kill each other, steal from each other, we live on a beautiful tiny planet in the vastness of cold dark emptiness and can’t even keep our own house in order.?
We not built to last.?😳
Hate to break it too you jetcat but humans are animals 😆 and virtually all animals kill and steal from each other. We descend from chimpanzees and if they come across a lonely occupant from a neighbouring group they literally tear them limb from limb. They have been known to dismember humans purely because they didn’t share a particular food out equally between the group. Sometimes they even do this to members of their own group.
The last animal group to truly rule the planet were the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Don’t think they were the friendliest to each other either 😆 and I would love to have seen a human try to survive through that period.
Don’t think most people realise how lucky they are to live now as apposed to even a few hundred years ago or maybe even 80 years ago during the last war. War has been the norm through virtually all of human history and is now much more difficult. People used to die daily through lack of food and now they die from an over abundance. Medicine was non existent and people would die in droves from the smallest of infections that we now don’t even think about.
There has never been a better time to live.
there’s lots of creatures that do things like that But they do it to survive, we do alot because of greed and never being satisfied . We will have to see how it goes I reckon and see who makes it. I know who Iv got my money on though.
They’re all the same instincts jetcat. All comes from the amygdala and is present in all mammals. Chimpanzees tearing apart a lone chimpanzee has nothing to do with survival. It has to do with dominance. Which is the same instinct that drives your examples. There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of animal cruelty where it has nothing to do with survival. Especially from chimpanzees from which we descend. As you said modern day humans are but the blink of an eye, our brains haven’t had time to evolve enough yet, we are still chimps.
Who’s your money on out of interest?
not the self destructive humans, that’s for sure. 👍
Who then? I’m interested what you think is going to happen?
I think that we will kill our selves off through our own actions and behaviour and the way we treat each other.
Its certainly a possibility that’s for sure. But the fact definitely remains, that in my opinion there has never been a better time to be alive.
I understand what you mean. Technology wise and understanding of things around us etc and our engineering skills including engineering skills in medicine too.
And also behaviourally. War used to be a given. Humans would do absolutely unspeakable things to each other and this was the norm not the exception. People brutally killed with zero empathy, slaves taken, children burnt alive, public tortures etc. Just a few examples of how life used to be. I’m not sure how anyone can say things have not gotten a hell of a lot better.
In fact things are now so incredibly easy in comparison that we have to go looking for things to be upset about 😆 like “nasty” tweets and comments on Internet forums. Humans have become mentally weak because we no longer have the physical hardships to toughen us up.
We live in a VERY privileged time but no one seems to recognise or appreciate it.
Animals don't deliberately destroy their home and poison their own food and water. There's the difference for you.
We are about to fight multiple wars, surely ones that will no doubt rage with weapons and carnage untold in some parts of the world. But also the wars inside, the ones in which we will experience and see the suffering of many humans, due to what we've done to our home, and decide where we go from here.
We are still animals regardless of how you wish to paint it. Your missing the point. We are just animals that have developed a higher form of intelligence through years of evolution and I’m not saying we’re angels. We’re not we’re incredibly stupid. As I said we are still monkeys. My fact still remains that we are living in the best conditions in history. Unless you prefer fighting for your life on a daily basis and never knowing if you or your family are going to survive the next hour let alone day?
The future doesn’t exist. Only in your head. Your trying to predict something that’s going to happen but you have absolutely no idea like the rest of us. We only know what’s happening right now in this moment and sometimes even that is up for debate.
Your talking about human suffering as if we haven’t already experienced thousands of years of it 😆 there will always be human suffering but as I’ve said in my messages if you read them, the level of human suffering these days is minimal compared to days gone by.
Animals don’t poison and destroy their own home because they don’t have the capability to do so yet. Give a chimpanzee the ability to use fire and see what happens 😆😆
We also have the capability to know better. We're not stupid, we're shortsighted and greedy, despite our intelligence.
No we’re stupid 😆 people have the habit of trying to separate humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are no different, just a little smarter. Do you seriously not think other animals are conscious enough to “know better?” Many animals know when they’ve done wrong or are doing wrong. Chimpanzees and dogs for example. We are no different.
We have the intelligence to know better and we should also have the intelligence to look at all of human history and realise that we are living in the best time for humankind that their has ever been. Yet we don’t. We’ve got no need to fight for survival so we fight each other on Internet forums and get upset by nasty tweets online like I said before 😆
So true Bob , some of them younger 😔
Yes, the crossings out in the address book are a sad sign of getting older. Just two for me this year, unless of course I don’t know of some.
Though really I feel that life is for the living, and getting on with. I have started to step away from social media, or things that are really aimed at getting us mad. Then children and grandchildren give me hope for the future. I aim to enjoy myself as much as possible, and not dwell too much on the negatives - let’s face it, those names crossed out can’t do that.
Occupational hazard with me as most of my foot patients are aged 70+. 😢
sadly I agree Bob, been to 2 funerals just last wk & another to come. 🥲
Yes know how this feels. Lost 5 friends in the last 3 years. Two to cancer the others to heart problems - Two of my friends had never been diagnosed with the heart problems that took them and were unaware but now looking back I can see that they had symptoms. Though obviously because of Covid had not seen them for a couple of years. We put so much down to being old when we could be ill and should get help. I imagined that they had been to see a Doc and their symptoms were because of something else or they had been diagnosed and were receiving treatment/medication it's only when their spouses tell me they had no idea there was anything wrong that I can see that there were signs there. Of course one of my friends who died from Cancer was stubborn and wouldn't go to the Doc and when he had to because his symptoms it was too late. Such a shame for his wife who was opn at him all the time to go to the GP.
same here. Very sad
BobDVolunteer
Sorry if I missed any replies but just had another 500 mile round trip for a family birthday dinner. Lucky with traffic but weather today was dire. More like power boat racing on M3 than motoring. And why do people not put their damned lights on when it is raining. Helga the baby beema looked after us well though. Will read posts later.
Hope you doing well Bob following your recent procedure
as my Dad used to say - when you are 80 everyone is your friend !
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