If I was to ask a general question as to whether life was better in the past what would you say.

Better in what way? I notice your entire list is materialist in nature.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Dangit ... I was going to point out the same thing!

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

Me...I think times are better now. I always debate this with my older relatives. They think times were better in the past.

Life was shit then, and it's shit now. But at least we have "American Idol"!



Grumpy Kahuna

Maybe a better question would be: are people happier today?

Don't mess with my groove, man. I'm on an asshole roll in a few of the other threads ;-))

"Not REALLY Grumpy" Kahuna

Don't let me stop you from reaching your full rectal potential. Be all the asshole you can be, it's America by golly. ;-)

Depending on what you mean by "then", I'd say we are much better. We are wrapping up the Piscean age, where the general mode of thinking was to have faith, to believe. Now we are taking our first steps into the Aquarian age, where man will no longer need faith, he will know. Deception, lies, etc. will be impossible and energy will be free. The task of opening the heart will have been fullfilled, but the struggle for onward and upward movement shall remain. In the meantime I'd really like to get one of the new Guru Crono's, and my life would be better if I got one sooner rather than later.

In the meantime I'd really like to get one of the new Guru Crono's, and my life would be better if I got one sooner rather than later.



Can I have your Klein, then?

I think things were better. Life was a little tougher, money was a little harder to come by, and we didn't have disc wheels, clipless pedals and aero stuff (we didn't even have triathlon!!) but life was also simpler and there was more open space to play in.

And you didn't give a nitwit $2 mil for spilling coffee on herself.

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

I'm a nostalgia buff and memory lane rover, but there is no time like the present. The past is just a good bye. We seem only to remember the good things and forget the bad.

If Guru comps me a Crono, I'll be an overnight sensation that becomes too busy doing my thing with the women in The Hottie Thread to be able to find time to ride Sarah, my Klein. She's yours man.

Today is our kids back then.

I don't know. It's late out here and i can't swim or run because of a head cold. So anytime is better than right now.

Definitely better now- health care, civil rights, technology and safety, tolerance for people not like ones's self, you name it. The problem is, IMO, the 24 hour news channels who are constantly trying to grab eyeballs by finding new ways to scare theAmerican public so we end up getting a pretty skewed view of reality from them.

Remember a couple years ago we had The Summer of Child Abductions? Ask the person on the street then and they'd probably say there's been a huge increase in non-custodial child kidnapping. But the truth was that estimates were that the rate of those types of abductions were at a 20 year low. Same thing with many other areas of danger- we're a safer country, a higher percentage of our kids are graduating from high school and then graduating from college, all kinds of wonderful things are going on.

But positive news doesn't sell like the negative sensationalism.

I will say life is certainly more complicated than ever before. More crap, more choices, etc. My grandmother scolded me a few years ago for worrying about where I was going to live and what I was going to do for a living. She said, "When I was young, we just had to live where we found work and we took whatever job we could find." Most of us are spoiled today. -TB

When I was young, we just had to live where we found work and we took whatever job we could find." Most of us are spoiled today. -TB



Amen to that. Personally, I get antsy if I stay in one place longer than 4 years. In fact, since I retired from the military back in '99 (where I moved on average every 3 years) and went to work for Northwest, I make a point of moving every 2 years. I just like the new places I get to see and live in.

I'd have no problem relocating to another state, if that's where the work was.

Tony

So I take it that I will be able to have your place in Hawaii within the next 4 years then? ;)

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________________
Adrian in Vancouver

hey, I'll spill coffee on you for free!

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The past always seems better but the more things change the more they stay the same.

Be happy with now.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

"hey, I'll spill coffee on you for free!"

That's cold, bro'

No, wait, I guess it really isn't, is it? Would that be generic home-brew, or a $5.95 Starbucks? I'm not sure how flattered to be...

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...

There was a sociologist in the 70s - Frank Parkin (I think it was him) - who talked about the 'deteriorated present'. Simply, his idea was that things that are more recent to us seem more imperfect than the past, which with distance loses its full stench and heft so that we recall it in a fonder light. Kind of like rose tinted spectacles, I suppose. So we percieve that things were better a long time ago, and that life is spinning rapidly out of control now. Sort of 'hell in a handcart' idea.

The funny thing is that, if you look at people like Aristotle or Cicero, they were certain that life was bad and getting worse in their times, yet we now look back on antiquity as the 'golden age!'. I suppose it shows us that perspective on these things is so hard to attain.

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kiwipat

per ardua ad astra