How the times change: turning out to be responsible adults

[Captante]

Seriously man. It's been like twenty years since I was in high school. You get older but your brain doesn't!

I think about the past A LOT. Probably more than I should

You're not alone.

 

[Kaido]

I've been out of high school going on 33 years and out of grad school for 25 years. Those look like big numbers (and they are), but it's even more mind blowing when I think "I've lived 50% of my life since I left grad school" - it's almost unfathomable! I'm almost a completely different person than I was in high school and even college - it's nice having a lot more experience but with life experience often comes cynicism. I don't dream like I used to, and I miss that.

I think about the past A LOT. Probably more than I should. I've always told people the 80s were the best decade of my life and that's still true today. They even seem to get better and better in my mind's eye as I grow older. In a way, it's odd - I make a lot of money and can do almost anything I want, yet I was so much happier back then. Up until about 2000 or so, I used to think "Things haven't changed THAT much" but then - I don't know, maybe after 9/11? - I realized how much things have changed. Today is almost an alien world compared to when I grew up. Technology is way better, but the tech of the 80s had a personality and charm all its own. Politics are ridiculous now. I look at kids today and wonder if they ever really go outside or play with toys like action figures rather than sitting on a phone, tablet, or Switch all day. It's just so different. When I was a kid, I went to arcades and played Atari, but I also played outside a TON and had lots of Star Wars and GI Joe figures.

And I'd be remiss if I didn't reply to you specifically with this - if I could time travel back to being a kid and I could take one piece of technology with me, I'd definitely take a 3d printer. Holy crap, I would've been in heaven with a 3d printer and building stuff for my action figures.

The 80's were definitely a golden era. I have so many good memories from it...amazing Saturday morning cartoons, fantastic music, going to school in your PJ's & parachute pants if you wanted to, biking to other cities as a kid because everybody just did that back then. Now everyone is hypnotized by screens & stay indoors all the time! Although as I've gone back to watch stuff like Thundercats & realized they hardly even move their mouths because of animation budgets, I realized a lot of that is nostalgia & my kid-brain imagination took over a lot, lol. Speaking of 3D printers, when I was a kid I invented an idea of a pen that you could draw in the air. Since then, two things have happened:

1. They have a 3D-printer pen that you can use to draw stuff - granted you have to draw supports, but you can kinda-sorta draw in the air lol - available for like $39 on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/MYNT3D-Super-3D-Pen-Compatible/dp/B081C946ZJ

Of course, you don't get the accuracy of a computer-driven 3D printer, but it's still pretty crazy that it's available! And for cheap!

2. You CAN draw in the air for virtual reality. I was late for work the day I downloaded it because I was so engrossed in being able to magically draw in the air in VR!

Google

But similar to using a 3D Pen, it's fun but not as good as other tools, like an iPad or Wacom drawing tablet with a pressure-sensitive pen. I remember playing arcade games as a kid, and now you can get a Raspberry Pi setup for like $80 with like 10,000 games on it. And you can buy a wireless VR headset for $299 from Amazon, which is astounding & amazing, and even stream games wirelessly from SteamVR now! But like with science, where anything you observe gets changed because you're there in the environment, all decades have their own unique problems. The average grocery store has over 42,000 items, and yet we get so overwhelmed with having to cook that we order Uber Eats. We have the world's information at our fingertips with Google, Wikipedia, Youtube, TikTok, etc., and we prefer to watch silly videos all the time.

Our food puts us into comas, our electric lights & screens make us addicted to staying up late, and we just kind of walk around mildly tired & semi-disengaged all the time. Although I wonder if that has just always been the case for many human beings...

 

[Kaido]

Lol that's how I feel too. I sometimes refer to people older than me (like my parents' age) as "the adults" and forget that I myself am an adult lol.

Yeah it's a very specific & weird feeling lol. I feel like I'm going to be like Dick Clark, aka "America's oldest teenager" at some point. Particularly when I see people who are like, on a career track & climbing a ladder really seriously & doing other serious adult type of activities, like getting really into lawn care or whatever. Although I already have the New Balances so I'm halfway there