I'm Increasingly Resistant to New Things

luka

Well-known member
I'm increasingly resistant to new things. Partly because having a historical perspective helps you realise that new isn't good in and of itself. Partly because so much change has happened around you that sucks, and you hanker after the old days. It's partly nostalgia. But it's partly the realisation that some things are actually getting worse.
 

luka

Well-known member
I'm about to lose one of my only anchors, as my mum sells the house I grew up in from 1983 onwards. I don't feel good about that. I found the massive changes in Stratford very difficult too. It means my memories won't have any physical location anymore. Nothing real to pin them too.
 

woops

is not like other people
as i've said before on here prior to lockdown i had no internet at home,no laptop, no smartphone, no doorbell. lockdown changed all that except the doorbell
 
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woops

is not like other people
I'm about to lose one of my only anchors, as my mum sells the house I grew up in from 1983 onwards. I don't feel good about that. I found the massive changes in Stratford very difficult too. It means my memories won't have any physical location anymore. Nothing real to pin them too.
la forme d'une ville change plus vite, helas, que le coeur d'un humain
 
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luka

Well-known member
You can't always resist the new cos often it just steamrollers you. You don't get consulted, they just send the demolition team in and pull down your memories, reduce them to rubble and haul them off. Next day there's a brand new building standing there.
 

luka

Well-known member
But I don't read the news, I don't listen to any music, I don't watch new films or read new books. Like Woops I don't have a smartphone. I don't recognise any of the new celebrities. In that sense I'm an information Luddite. I don't try and 'keep up.'
 

luka

Well-known member
Obviously it's a truism to say the pace of change has increased exponentially but it's good to just tune in to what that entails emotionally sometimes.

Your past erased overnight. And of course, in the old days, well, we used to live in the same thatched cottage for generations, in the same village, and nothing ever changed for 10,000 years
 

luka

Well-known member
Of course all of our hopes are bound up in the new, the unprecedented, the miracle, the messiah, the revolution, the cataclysm, the rapture, the finish line, the reward, the tomorrow that never comes
 
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Leo

Well-known member
I'm about to lose one of my only anchors, as my mum sells the house I grew up in from 1983 onwards. I don't feel good about that. I found the massive changes in Stratford very difficult too. It means my memories won't have any physical location anymore. Nothing real to pin them too.

that's a tough one. my parents died years ago but my sister still lives in the family house where we all grew up, and I almost can't imagine it not being there, or in different hands. as you say, it's an anchor, a life-long foundation in your past. it'll eventually happen, of course, but I imagine it'll be very unsettling.
 

martin

----
I've lost everything in my past - the place(s) I've lived, the communities in them, individuals, family members. Houses, streets and areas changed beyond recognition. Long-gone shops that couldn't afford to exist now. If there was an anchor, it was wrenched out and chucked into the void a long time ago. For me it's not about wallowing in nostalgia - they're dead worlds, sealed off forever. That doesn't make me feel warm and cosy: it's the most heartbreaking thing I've ever experienced.

But life goes on and we'll all be flung into the pond of irrelevance eventually, just like the narky pensioners who told us we were spoiled and had it easy because we missed the Blitz.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Similar. Lost just about everything with meaning over the years. Family homes, deaths of family and close friends rips the beating heart out of you. Grieving is one thing, moving on another. The more you cling or clasp, the worse it gets. Accept (somehow) and commit to new realities.

Change isn’t always welcome, but growth is even if it breaks your heart in the process.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I'm interested in this and how it manifests in the idea that old people are all increasingly conservative and right wing.

Because I'm not sure that's true but there is something apparent in getting older and having a different perspective. And I think loss is a big part of it. Youth is wasted on the young and all that.

We deposited our only child at University at the weekend. I'm not one to say that parenthood is the be all and end all but that is quite a wrench. (Of course it was always going to happen and is amazing and a new chapter for all of us and all that.)
 

woops

is not like other people
Hardcore. :cool:
hm, perhaps, i was quite happy like that and found that one hour per day was more than enough to do everything online i wanted or needed to. i never buy things online, ever. at home i could do "other things" without distraction. since lockdown i am, predictably, stuck to this laptop almost first thing in the morning, as soon as i get in the front door, etc.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
hm, perhaps, i was quite happy like that and found that one hour per day was more than enough to do everything online i wanted or needed to. i never buy things online, ever. at home i could do "other things" without distraction. since lockdown i am, predictably, stuck to this laptop almost first thing in the morning, as soon as i get in the front door, etc.

This is where people like me say that they wish they could be more like that but we know in our hearts that this will never be possible short of being recommissioned to being lumberjacks or some kind of other non-office based activity.
 

woops

is not like other people
well that library-based internet use was the result of a lifestyle that had absolutely nothing at all to do whatsoever with office-based activity, more like wandering the streets all day every day - i am a library member in every inner london borough except one i think
 
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