Active Users:677 Time:24/12/2024 01:52:17 AM
What's odd is that I've become happier and more content in recent years Larry Send a noteboard - 17/03/2011 02:28:14 AM
Online site involvement is like getting into a long-term relationship.

Early on, there is the thrill of establishing who you are, being seen, being active, being valued. Being accepted.

Then, once "accepted" for who you are or wish to seem to be, it becomes less important to address everything, to comment on "friend's" posts because they made them. You stop offering to clean the bathrooom and wash up the dishes.

And then your attention starts to wander. Facebook, Twitter, more immediate forums that cater for recognition junkies. You start to notice the 19 year old stunner who lives actoss the road.

The old partner, despite the RAFO facelift and tummy-tuck, is still the old partner. People start to look for something trim, taut and terrific, something not so comfortable than their old, familiar partner.

Despite being tummy-tucked, face-lifted and having had the most incredible boob-job that TMJ could desire, RAFO is still a cosmetically enhanced Wotmania, a site that existed before iPhones, iPods and iPads.

People need to work out which has more value for them, the trusted comfortable companion or the 19-year-old across the street.

On the question of the lack of levity in people's lives, please recall that Wotmania never had a GFC, never had climate change, never had tsunamis. People in real life are more serious these days, and it leaks over here. I wish it were not so, but it is. When life is more serious, you tend not to see the funny side of it. Maybe Gen Y is realising that blaming the Baby Boomers for everything is not exactly going to solve their problems, and are beginning to take life seriously. Gen X will remain bemused by the attention lavished on Gen Y, and the Baby Boomers, a fine body of men and women totally focused on satisfying their needs will continue to hold power and do what they like. Few Boomers come here, excluding me. I can see the funny side in everything, but my fears for my Gen X children and my Gen Y, or is it Gen i, granchildren curtail my enthusiasm for levity. Mrs. Druid and I have accepted our need to work full-time until we are 80 in order to provide a financial buffer for the sundry offspring and offspring's offspring against the reality to come. Not much to be humourous about there.

And...until someone tells me who killed Asmodean, I am unlikely to lighten up! :|

Forgive my rambling. The need to provide masses of caffeine-free blood to my Transylvanian doctor has me in the grip of full-blown caffeine withdrawal. That, and the Alzheimers, play havoc with what passes for rational argument in any of my discourses.


I recall most of those events taking place during mid-to-late era wotmania as well, in addition to 3/11 and 7/7 (and 9/11 that TMJ mentioned). There's something else to it, I suppose. It might just be that I'm just bemused by it all, finding all of these world events to be Kafkaesque to the point that I'm laughing like Kafka himself at the big joke being played out before us. I certainly am amused by the seriousness that those younger and older generations have. Maybe it's because I've grown up knowing my grandparents just well enough to understand how one laughed and smiled through the Great Depression. Or maybe it's just finding a niche for a while, where the stakes are highest yet the field is at its most personal in a while. After all, educating a child can begin with a smile and end with laughter; all else is prologue.

Maybe that's it. Or maybe I'm learning there is a freedom in accepting responsibility for once and not measuring myself against personal gains but against the laughter of the suffering. Hard to say. But to quote an old hymn, "Peace is flowing like a river..."
Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie

Je suis méchant.
Reply to message
Things that I have learned and noticed over 11 years - 16/03/2011 11:07:50 PM 1399 Views
Most of the personal sharing you describe I've shifted over to my Facebook activity. - 17/03/2011 12:12:34 AM 646 Views
There is that, yes - 17/03/2011 12:24:14 AM 710 Views
I only use it to keep up with family and share pictures - 17/03/2011 04:22:54 AM 598 Views
Facebook; that's that one app for Farmville, right? - 17/03/2011 01:05:58 AM 701 Views
You are getting older, that's all - 17/03/2011 01:12:14 AM 774 Views
Netscape turns 18 next year.... - 17/03/2011 01:21:40 AM 639 Views
It will never catch on! - 17/03/2011 01:32:00 AM 672 Views
Re: It will never catch on! - 17/03/2011 01:52:12 AM 611 Views
joel, you're about to get married, no leering at other browsers for you! *NM* - 17/03/2011 04:34:35 AM 324 Views
It's cool; we have an open source marriage. - 17/03/2011 05:29:37 PM 642 Views
Re: You are getting older, that's all - 17/03/2011 01:53:28 AM 648 Views
Agreed...but - 17/03/2011 03:15:42 AM 832 Views
Re: Agreed...but - 17/03/2011 11:30:42 PM 659 Views
What's odd is that I've become happier and more content in recent years - 17/03/2011 02:28:14 AM 851 Views
Familiarity breeds contempt. - 17/03/2011 01:14:03 AM 809 Views
Thanks - 18/03/2011 09:48:49 PM 747 Views
Books: Always finding new ways to enrich peoples lives. - 22/03/2011 10:51:53 PM 779 Views
Since we first met a few things have happened. - 17/03/2011 02:06:40 AM 841 Views
Nah, you're not alone. - 17/03/2011 08:47:43 AM 612 Views
Yeah, but you started out with boobs. - 17/03/2011 11:32:00 PM 667 Views
There is that, yes - 18/03/2011 09:46:44 PM 768 Views
remember all that time we spent on the phone? sometimes i miss stuff like that - 17/03/2011 05:34:08 AM 630 Views
There are nights where I crash by 7 PM these days - 18/03/2011 09:38:39 PM 733 Views
Even I have gotten tired of the politics. - 17/03/2011 06:17:23 AM 681 Views
My view on politics has changed quite a bit in the past few years - 18/03/2011 09:40:31 PM 775 Views
Mine hasn't, really, but my opinion of repeating my positions endlessly has. - 18/03/2011 11:14:39 PM 661 Views
There is that, yes - 19/03/2011 01:48:39 PM 734 Views
Things I've learned.. - 17/03/2011 02:17:46 PM 604 Views
There is wisdom in that - 18/03/2011 09:54:10 PM 682 Views
Or. I could be that that some people (coughmecough) - 22/03/2011 05:55:50 PM 644 Views
I stopped trying to be funny when I realized I wasn't, and that I can't take a joke. - 17/03/2011 03:19:56 PM 624 Views
nUUUUUUUUUUUd *NM* - 17/03/2011 11:32:57 PM 303 Views
Well, you could just be silly instead - 18/03/2011 09:52:46 PM 623 Views
Alas, I am not a resident of Camelot. *NM* - 19/03/2011 08:16:59 PM 313 Views
'Tis a silly place. - 21/03/2011 10:26:49 PM 529 Views
Don't feel to bad - 17/03/2011 04:27:15 PM 681 Views
Ha! - 18/03/2011 09:51:19 PM 567 Views
I think part of the problem is people are simply not posting fun stuff any more - 17/03/2011 05:03:52 PM 580 Views
I think that's near, if not at, the heart of all this - 18/03/2011 09:50:37 PM 622 Views
My problem is I just like to argue - 18/03/2011 10:12:03 PM 647 Views
I don't think you like me. - 18/03/2011 06:27:45 AM 736 Views
So ignore him. I like you. - 18/03/2011 07:32:47 AM 691 Views
- 19/03/2011 04:43:55 AM 637 Views
Yeah, if you've been avoiding me over an internet fight, you really do. - 19/03/2011 08:56:03 AM 581 Views
What can I say, I have issues. - 20/03/2011 04:21:12 AM 703 Views
I like you. - 18/03/2011 01:10:16 PM 681 Views
*splutters* - 19/03/2011 04:45:03 AM 577 Views
*giggles* - 21/03/2011 01:10:21 AM 1033 Views
random thoughts is yours? Talk about your unlikely pairings.... - 18/03/2011 04:32:17 PM 703 Views
Re: random thoughts is yours? Talk about your unlikely pairings.... - 19/03/2011 04:46:59 AM 656 Views
Skype is your friend. - 22/03/2011 10:47:41 PM 769 Views
Really? - 18/03/2011 08:41:35 PM 874 Views
Really. - 19/03/2011 04:41:46 AM 758 Views
- 19/03/2011 01:49:30 PM 645 Views
It doesn't help that you don't tend to post things that make you likeable. - 18/03/2011 06:55:04 AM 800 Views
I always took those posts as attempts to include people. - 18/03/2011 05:33:55 PM 695 Views
10-11 years ago, I might have thought I was a major part of this site. Uncertain of that now, - 18/03/2011 09:36:26 PM 707 Views
Offering a perspective. - 18/03/2011 10:03:58 PM 631 Views
Re: Offering a perspective. - 19/03/2011 01:46:06 PM 773 Views
The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind - 19/03/2011 04:19:10 AM 675 Views
Tangled up in blues - 19/03/2011 01:50:52 PM 949 Views
I haven't changed at all. - 22/03/2011 01:44:12 PM 720 Views
Re: I haven't changed at all. - 22/03/2011 11:37:47 PM 592 Views
You just only propagated, that's all - 23/03/2011 12:33:20 AM 582 Views
- 23/03/2011 01:15:01 AM 649 Views

Reply to Message