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[umiman]

I had, for a long time, believed that everything in this world had a mind and was alive. It's probably the reason why I never had many friends growing up (not that I don't have friends now.) since there was no need for friends when you were surrounded by great things all around. Keep in mind that this way a time way before Toy Story or those kind of shows, if anything they only reinforced my faith that everything was alive.

I would frequently switch the arranged positions of my clothes or the books on my shelf or the toys in the cupboard so that no one was bored with who they were with and everyone got a chance to meet everyone else. I made sure to use everything as unilaterally as I could so that no one would feel left out: read Sonic on one day, then the encyclopedia the next, then the dictionary, etc. It was pretty daunting.

I usually feel nostalgic and quite frequently depressed that I can no longer return to those times of innocence. I think the reason why I grew up so cold hearted and practical is because my parents' idea of upbringing was to insult everything I did with a mocking sneer. They would frequently brag to other family members that they never once needed to use corporal punishment on me but I think the idea that your parents never trusted you, frequently show complete disdain for your achievements, and consider you to be a tool for divorce negotiations to be far more cruel than a simple smack to the head.

Eventually I learned that my books and toys never had lives and keeping them around was futile. When I was around thirteen, I dumped all my childhood keepsakes in a plastic box and never looked at them again. I used them to make my parents feel guilty as hell sometimes, by pretending they had value to me when they frequently attempted to throw out the box and making a fuss, but the truth was I no longer really believed in their value any more.

I'm not sure why I'm typing this out but I was curious if anyone else wishes they could go back to not knowing the truth of life.

Hmm... this is a little depressing. How about a better childhood memory. When I was around six years old, I was staring at the mirror wondering what the penis was for. I knew that girls had holes instead. I logically concluded that since only boys have rods and girls have holes, therefore rods must go into holes. I tried to get a neighbourhood girl to test this theory but was found out by her mom. It was... unfortunate I think.

[viskaslietuvai]

On the one hand I definitely understand what you're saying. On the other hand the only regret I have, but it's a big one is that I didn't know then what I know now, and I know that this will persist to some degree throughout my life, by which I mean to say I'll always want that second chance to apply what I know to the situation that taught me what I know. That may make no sense.

Also, I don't really want to return to the times of childhood. You know how people tell kids that these youthful years are the best of their life. I now believe those people are full of sh*t. I'm having so much fun at any given moment even when I'm frustrated with girl problems or some fucking program that won't properly compile. Now I'm in control of my life and I'm here because of the choices I've made, good and bad, and if that wasn't awesome enough I now am able to appreciate that. My room is a mess because I chose to do something else and I may get to go to a proper university and embark an intellectual journey of astounding proportions because of my choice to finally try in school. When I was a kid, yeah I was ignorant, and if ignorance is bliss, then I'm right: Bliss is f*cking boring.

I realize this comes off as pretty after-school-special and lacking a central point but your post reminded me of this, and it's an encouraging thought to me. Also, if it's any consolation your description of your familial life is not entirely dissimilar to mine, so it's not as though I've led a completely unrealistic life of charms and blessings.

Additionally, I really like your childhood animism, it implies a human desire to see some purpose beyond the mundane. Whether that is true or not is up to the individual, but everyone's had it for a second. The story is tremendously relatable.


Edit:Forgot some people think swearing is offensive. Added asterisks because they are like blinders to the easily offended.

[Yanlin]

Heh. I remember my childhood. I was too smart for my own good. I kept arguing all the time about logic and philosophy. I'm dead serious. Teacher made me pissed with their lies.

Example:

Math. The teacher asked "What's 5 minus 2?" and everybody yelled "3!"

Good enough so far. But I go ahead and raise my finger to ask "But what would 2 minus 5 be? -3?"

The teacher says "That is impossible. Negative numbers do not exist."

I persisted and argued. Citing sources where I saw negative numbers. So guess what she does. Send me to the fucking principal to be sent home.



Or the problem with physics and chemistry... At 3rd grade, I asked when I'll start learning physics and chemistry. They said 5th. When I got to 5th grade, they said 6th. When I got to 6th, they said 7th. When I got to 7th, they said 8th. When I got to 8th, they said 9th. When I got to 9th, they said 10th. When I got to 10th... I got a half assed "science" class.



But if there's one teacher I hate... It's my 4th grade science teacher. She was the biggest hypocritical bitch you could find. Constantly punishing anyone who disagreed with her. She'd constantly make mistakes. I still worry what happened to the other kids who didn't realize she was wrong.

For example, she called Pythagoras, Pitgors. Literally. (In Hebrew, it is pretty much spelled like that. You might default to pronouncing it like that if you didn't know it was Pythagoras.)

She also said there are only two states of matter and gas is merely liquid moving at high speed. (Which it is... Technically... But that state is called gas...) She also denied the existence of plasma. Both blood plasma and the state of matter.

I recall her punishing me for saying that kids don't come from the stork. (Some kid asked. She said the stork. I disagreed and... Details ensue... Go ahead. Sue me for my parents being honest with me.)



Ugh. Childhood.

[FoboslC]

Good gawd, why is she even allowed to work at school? She should work as janitor.

[Yanlin]

Hey, the entire education system here is fucked up the balls. I recall a teacher that would yell at me every time I got an answer right because... "You didn't let anyone else have a try!"

Great. Sue me for knowing the answer and saying it. She'd do it even if nobody tried to answer. She DEMANDED somebody else got it wrong first. Then she called me stupid because I never answer any questions...

[Cthulhu]

In fifth grade my Spanish teacher favored kids.  One of my friends always got an O in her class(Spanish wasn't a real class back then, it was a fake class, and got fake grades) despite the fact that he never did any work, and I worked really hard and always got an UN NI(Unsatisfactory/Needs Improvement).  Okay, that was a lie, I didn't do anything in that stupid class either, but he still got good grades for it.

Another time she was selling ring pops during lunch, and I bought the wrong kind.  I returned it unopened, but she said there were no returns or exchanges.  I go back to my table and say what happens.  Favkid is like "Here, watch this", walks back to her, and gets it exchanged.  Omfg.

Or the time(This was only a few weeks ago), kids got violent because I told them that deoxygenated blood is dark red, not blue(And supported my claim with evidence and examples), and that went against what their parents(Who were doctors and nurses) told them.  Omfg.

[Yanlin]

Oxygenated blood is about 98%-99% oxygenated. Deoxygenated blood is 75% oxygenated. Oxygen does indeed decolor the blood. But maybe with no oxygen, they are blue... I don't know. I'm too confused.

Why the veins are color coded according to direction, I do not know. I'm more curious about that than blood oxygenation.

[Cthulhu]

They aren't color-coded, they're all white.  The blue color is an optical illusion and even if the blood were green you wouldn't be able to tell, because veins are opaque.

[Awayfarer]

Hmmm, well, while we're venting...

I had a wonderful home life but a terrible social life growing up. This generally consisted of befriending someone and then being shunned 6-12 months down the road because either 1) I was friends with someone somebody else hated, 2) The fun of randomly kicking someone out of the group and tormenting them.
By the first year of high school (and throughout) I'm a nervous wreck, misanthropic and depressed. Even the outsiders and the really unpopular kids want nothing to do with me.

There are certain instincts you do not unlearn. I have made friends in my adult life. I can socialize with strangers somewhat, but it always leaves me feeling tired. Nowadays if I encounter someone who seems generally friendly my first thought is "how long until you change?"

In a nutshell I haven't been able to shake the feeling that the human beast is unreliable and dangerous.

[Edit:] This (my own post that is) might be more appropriate under the title "childhood neuroses", heh.

[Rooster]

A lot I can relate to.
From 1st to 6th grade I was bullied on. I don't know why but I guess he thought its funny or that I deserved it...
from 7th to 9th I got "bad reputation" I didn't deserve. I tried to be kind, not annoy people, mind my own business and how do I get treated? A few kids start to call me names and whole class follows. Only 2 people are relatively kind towards me. At my early childhood I got suicidal thoughts. I recovered and I know that I wouldn't try to commit suicide but you never know for sure. I now have this teacher I totally hate. Normally besides obvious favorising, hardcore feminism (to the point that in front of whole class she insulted men) I and one girl were asking questions she couldn't answer, and even when we were right, she insisted that she was right and we're wrong. Teachers in my school can be so irritating. They interrupt you when you try to show that you had some knowledge, how they give us grades is unfair, we have some sort of "law" but its breaked on daily basis and when we try to complain we get stuff like "I don't want to interfere". I guess they wouldn't interfere when someone would be beat to death like last year...
Kids here are no better as I said earlier, I'm a little different and I already got "thrown out of society"
If nobody cares then f*ck you teachers and "cool kids" of all kinds, I'm going to live for myself hoping for better future (Or I can end this here and now  )

[Kogan Loloklam]

Wow. Just wow. Some of you guys hold on to such bitterness...
All I ever faced was being pulled out of the only class I actually liked in 6th grade because I once fought off two teachers who felt the need to physically drag me down the hall in 4th grade, rather than letting me walk with my own two feet. (They put an Asterisk next to my name, meaning I had some kind of learning disability. In 6th grade the school I was in was starting a new program for people with learning disabilities, and decided of their own will that anyone with a "learning disability" was to report to that class.)

As for my experiences with sex as a child, my friend came to different conclusions as to where the rod went at 9ish...

Then there was the Racism. White was the minority where I grew up. I didn't learn I was "white" until I was 7. Of course it had it's perks. I was almost practically raped when i was 15 by a girl because I was white. I'm kind of glad that i didn't get anything from that though, because can you imagine how active someone is if they want to have an experience with you based solely on the color of your skin?

Life is a series of events. Each one is an experience. Bad, good, it doesn't matter as long as you survive it.

[Awayfarer]

Wow. Just wow. Some of you guys hold on to such bitterness...

There's a difference between holding on to bitterness and realizing and trying to come to terms with negative aspects about your life and yourself. The bad stuff has just as much influence as the good. It is occasionally helpful to vent these, as you just did.

[Psyco Jelly]

Optimism ------High School------> Pessimism

The popular assumption is that teenagers let their emotions rule them. I hardly have emotions other than 'content', 'discontent', 'amused', and 'annoyed'.

[pokute]

The human experience is always a subjective one.  Differences are the results of the variety of contexts and how much context one has internalized.  The teenage years are typically when our minds reach out to establish the societal context, which naturally comes into conflict with our childhood experiences and beliefs.  As we grow older, the trend is to become more contextual, and less readily individual.

My problem is that my individual expression in childhood had often been severely punished and repressed, making me resort to fantasies as the only outlets.  Now that I am a grown person, I'm content to let the world flow around me, hardly feeling the need to assert myself.  While in video games, I can be relentlessly sadistic and domineering (e.g., hunting down every last unit on the map, bringing overwhelming firepower to bear, and consuming all of the resources, just because), and less so online because it is partially mixed with reality.  This is unlikely to change without substantial and practical empowerment, although I do not believe it to be a good idea to unleash myself unto the real world.

[Sordid]

I'm not sure why I'm typing this out but I was curious if anyone else wishes they could go back to not knowing the truth of life.

No. The truth is painful (and I still keep my plushies around in a box simply because I'm too much of a wuss to throw them out and too jealous to donate them to an orphanage or something), but I still prefer it to ignorance. Bliss is overrated.

Hmm... this is a little depressing. How about a better childhood memory. When I was around six years old, I was staring at the mirror wondering what the penis was for. I knew that girls had holes instead. I logically concluded that since only boys have rods and girls have holes, therefore rods must go into holes. I tried to get a neighbourhood girl to test this theory but was found out by her mom. It was... unfortunate I think.

But very astute! Observation -> hypothesis -> experiment, to invent the scientific method at age six, that is quite an achievement. You should totally put that on your CV when you apply for an academic position.