Better for you now or in the past?

I think things are better for me now.  I have more self awareness and there are more choices for me, especially as so much can be done online.  However, I also feel a great deal of sorrow at not knowing more earlier and not being able to prevent lots of trauma for my sons.  All very mixed for me. 

Billy87 said:

It comforts me to know that there were bad things about the old world too if that makes sense as I spend so much of my time longing for it.

Im always reminded of a line Roger Moore says to Tony Curtis in the Persuaders " You can't go back to the good old days, because they never existed in the first place"

After I read this last night I had the Persuaders theme tune in my head for hours.

There is a tendency to romanticise the past I think.

You and I were at very different stages of life though in the '80s so that's significant.

I was a struggling young woman then trying to come to terms with lots of things in life and finding very little support available.

The internet has opened up a whole new area of life for me.

I truly love this post, thank you so much for writing it. You have summed up everything I feel so much better than I could. 
its nice to find a kindred spirit 

Personally I spend a lot of my time longing for the past, for the 1990s that I remember as a child as I struggle terribly with the pace and confusion of modern life. With the exception of places like this forum, the internet is a scary place that seems to have made life so much more complicated. . Social media is horrible and confusing and has made human beings so much more image obsessed and cruel.  I miss a simple time when it didnt all exist

So it is interesting to hear a different perspective on all this. I only know the modern world as an adult, (Im 35) and I only know what the 1980s and 1990s were like as a child, not an adult. It comforts me to know that there were bad things about the old world too if that makes sense as I spend so much of my time longing for it.

Im always reminded of a line Roger Moore says to Tony Curtis in the Persuaders " You can't go back to the good old days, because they never existed in the first place"

I think that's one good thing about the internet....we can indulge in learning and reading about topics which interest us. And there's a wealth of resources out there.

Those were the days! I didn't appreciate just how blissful that was until it became a thing of the past.

I liked the streets being empty on a Sunday.

I've just had to google that film as it's one that I'm not familiar with. The actress is indeed naturally beautiful.

My son told me that there is a specific reason why so many young women are having lip fillers. However, I daren't elaborate as it could be deemed too graphic. Let's just say that what it reminds you of isn't a million miles away from what it's supposedly meant to make men think of.

I was definitely happier in the 80’s. Ignoring the struggles I had that I now know were due to autism, I was young and didn’t really have an understanding of the world. Adulthood is s&*%. It’s gotten progressively worse for me as the years have gone on and I’m tired. I don’t enjoy life at all, I find it too busy and demanding, people seem a lot more selfish and uncaring. Yes the internet is great and I spend a great deal of time on it, learning, reading, understanding questions I have throughout the day. But I’m not sure it has changed anything for the better, or people and society at least. 

Yes. I remember her from Bouquet of Barbed Wire.

I'm afraid that mouths that have had injections of lip filler remind me too vividly of the nether regions of female chimpanzees in oestrus (aptly called 'Pink Ladies' by Jane Goodall). Attractive to male chimps, no doubt, but not to me.

She is very like a young Susan Penhaligon.

No food or drink in any lab, but especially in a Schedule 5 lab. You are monitored on CC TV all the time you are working, you also have to phone an external monitor when you start work and just before you leave the lab. I was working on a tropical disease causing pathogen and our fridges, freezers and incubators were also locked. To get in, there was an electronically controlled door, operated by a keypad, which was an alarmed, then a key safe also with a code, once you had the key you could enter, but the keys to the incubators etc. were in another key safe!

Sporadic Sparkly said:

I have a real issue with the desire some females have to look like they have been mass-produced in a plastics factory.

There's a film I love 'Ex Machina' and your comment reminded me of Alicia Vikander in that (although she is actually naturally beautiful).

Agreed.

I remember those days well. Impossible to send an SMS or make a quick call to ask, "Where are you?" as mobile phones weren't around back then.

‘Structured reality’ as it’s ambiguously termed in the industry. Anathema to those of us who need at least a touch of authenticity in what we watch. 

I also find baffling that some young women seem to be happy to have returned to an archaic state of womanhood ie only interested in fitting into an ostensibly male ideal of what a woman should look and act like and only really concerned with their appearance.

To add to what you have said, I have a real issue with the desire some females have to look like they have been mass-produced in a plastics factory. I find it so sad that there are so many young females who think that in order to be considered physically attractive and desirable, they've got to get their lips injected with lip fillers, etc. I've heard and read that a good many males consider it repulsive.

There's the selfie obsession that I also don't get, particularly when it involves posing with a lip-filled 'trout pout'. Rarely do I consider such photos to look in any way seductive. Personally, I'd much rather look at a photo of someone smiling... BUT... each to their own.

Strange to think back to a time when you’d arrange to meet a friend or two under the town clock or something and if they didn’t show after ten minutes that was it. No update or explanation, maybe ever, or at the earliest some days after.