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Austin10833 Posts
On June 26 2010 02:13 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
This is honestly the mindset that some people have. But all I have to say is: Deal with it. Everyone has tough times. Everyone dies. If you get to the point in your life where you're just waiting to die, you're doing it wrong. If you have no passion for anything and no respect for yourselves and others, you are already dead. Find something to love, to desire, to work towards. That is what happiness is. This message is age-independent.
Haha, heavy handed and self-righteous, cooked just the way I like it. Can we get a few more life lessons while you're doling them out, mr. armchair philosopher?
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Damn, you guys are harsh on old people. I know they can be a pain, but I just automatically give old people a lot more leeway than with other people. I guess respecting elders is a dieing virtue...
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Totally support OP on this one. At first he simply tried to defuse the situation, didn't blame the old man, and said everything was fine. At that point the old man passed the line and I would probably do the same. I'm all for respecting your elders, however, I don't agree with respecting the assholes. He pretty much had the attitude of a bully.
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I don't respect "my elders" any more than other people... I don't know why I should.
If anyone bumps to me I won't care, but if they're a douche about it, their age doesn't matter, i'll react the same way.
If I'm carrying something valuable and I drop it I may have to work hard to suppress rage though...
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That old man speech is genius. It reminds me of Brooks from the Shawshank Redemption
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On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
I’m sorry I made you upset today, it was not my intention or desire to encumber a stranger with anger or grief. If I can give you any advice that might make you feel better, it’s that as the minutes roll past you unceasingly, with each one the minutia of life means less and less. If you pull back and view your moments not like small specks of paint, but as a painting, you’ll see it’s not each moment that matters but rather the whole of it, the scope of what makes you a man. Sometimes we all need a little perspective, something to show us that maybe the ice cream isn’t that important, and maybe this useless old man isn’t mean or selfish, he’s just having a hard time at it all and sometimes it’s just all too much.
I wish you all the best, and God bless.
Happy birthday Hot_bid.
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On June 26 2010 02:27 BroOd wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 02:13 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
This is honestly the mindset that some people have. But all I have to say is: Deal with it. Everyone has tough times. Everyone dies. If you get to the point in your life where you're just waiting to die, you're doing it wrong. If you have no passion for anything and no respect for yourselves and others, you are already dead. Find something to love, to desire, to work towards. That is what happiness is. This message is age-independent. Haha, heavy handed and self-righteous, cooked just the way I like it. Can we get a few more life lessons while you're doling them out, mr. armchair philosopher?
People of all ages and stations are prone to feel like they are trapped in the irresistible grip of fate. This feeling of inevitability, of purposelessness, is a death on its own. It's the same thing you can find in doses in those suffering "common" depression.
Whether you've just lost your most loved or you're battling against a cancer "guaranteed" to kill you or you're wondering when old age is finally going to "catch you", you just have to find something to cherish, something to care about, or it might as well all be over anyway.
The reality is that you can die at any instant in your life from an inconceivable number of phenomenon. Rather than focus on what is "inevitable", focus on the things that make life worth living.
How was that?
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On June 26 2010 02:28 Evilmonkey. wrote:
Damn, you guys are harsh on old people. I know they can be a pain, but I just automatically give old people a lot more leeway than with other people.
Why?
I try to be non-judgemental of all people, but I am not going to take bullshit from anyone.
And if anything, I think it makes more sense to give young people more leeway than old people.
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I imagine you might have overdone it, but I applaud how you told the man what was on your mind and set the situation right for him.
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Braavos36387 Posts
On June 26 2010 02:52 ilj.psa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
I’m sorry I made you upset today, it was not my intention or desire to encumber a stranger with anger or grief. If I can give you any advice that might make you feel better, it’s that as the minutes roll past you unceasingly, with each one the minutia of life means less and less. If you pull back and view your moments not like small specks of paint, but as a painting, you’ll see it’s not each moment that matters but rather the whole of it, the scope of what makes you a man. Sometimes we all need a little perspective, something to show us that maybe the ice cream isn’t that important, and maybe this useless old man isn’t mean or selfish, he’s just having a hard time at it all and sometimes it’s just all too much.
I wish you all the best, and God bless. Happy birthday Hot_bid.
If I wrote that, I would've turned it into a story about an old man whose only dream was to tie balloons to his house and lift it off to have an adventure.
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I like how almost everyone in this thread acts as if they will never be old, they're another species of people or something...you are not immortal, and every "old person" was once your age.
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On June 26 2010 01:35 R0YAL wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:27 Zapperkhan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 26 2010 00:56 Chill wrote:
I say sorry out of habit when anything happens, even if it's in no way my fault. Then I get angry at myself for saying sorry. But seriously, it's like hardcoded into my being at this point - if I make contact with any person I automatically say sorry.
The latest example: I was walking home and some ~50 year old man yelled from behind me "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING". I immediately said sorry, then realized, how am I supposed to watch behind myself while walking? So then I started laughing. Then he got really angry. That made me laugh even more. So eventually we're walking in the same direction and I can't help to do anything but look at him and keep smiling and laughing while he's getting more and more angry. I used to be like this, with the saying sorry immediately. But after working in DC where most don't say a single word on their commute home, and probably because bumping into each other happens all too often on the subway. Not many other people say it either. Usually tourists from the southern US will. Also, I hate/maybe fear? old people. I dunno active old people don't bother me, but the ones that look like they might drop dead immediately creep me out! yeh here in Texas like 99% of people are super polite ESPECIALLY old people. In the city i live in people that just walk past eachother smile and say hello so i have these habits pretty bad >_< luckily its alot more healthier to have polite habits n_n
aren't people in Texas racist lol
do you get that because you're white?
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Austin10833 Posts
On June 26 2010 03:02 DefMatrixUltra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 02:27 BroOd wrote:On June 26 2010 02:13 DefMatrixUltra wrote:On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
This is honestly the mindset that some people have. But all I have to say is: Deal with it. Everyone has tough times. Everyone dies. If you get to the point in your life where you're just waiting to die, you're doing it wrong. If you have no passion for anything and no respect for yourselves and others, you are already dead. Find something to love, to desire, to work towards. That is what happiness is. This message is age-independent. Haha, heavy handed and self-righteous, cooked just the way I like it. Can we get a few more life lessons while you're doling them out, mr. armchair philosopher? People of all ages and stations are prone to feel like they are trapped in the irresistible grip of fate. This feeling of inevitability, of purposelessness, is a death on its own. It's the same thing you can find in doses in those suffering "common" depression. Whether you've just lost your most loved or you're battling against a cancer "guaranteed" to kill you or you're wondering when old age is finally going to "catch you", you just have to find something to cherish, something to care about, or it might as well all be over anyway. The reality is that you can die at any instant in your life from an inconceivable number of phenomenon. Rather than focus on what is "inevitable", focus on the things that make life worth living. How was that?
Not bad, but you might have to pare it down a bit to fit on a hallmark card.
Look, I get what you're saying, but don't you see how the sentiments you're expressing here are both presumptuous and, frankly, a little obnoxious? They're vague and seem almost unassailable in how they present simple truths, but the reality is that life isn't as black and white as that.
I just thought the fact that you'd respond to a person like that (even if it is a fictional one) with a phrase like "Deal with it" and then make some proclamation about universal happiness a bit pompous and distasteful.
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On June 26 2010 03:11 Nal_rAwr wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:35 R0YAL wrote:On June 26 2010 01:27 Zapperkhan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 26 2010 00:56 Chill wrote:
I say sorry out of habit when anything happens, even if it's in no way my fault. Then I get angry at myself for saying sorry. But seriously, it's like hardcoded into my being at this point - if I make contact with any person I automatically say sorry.
The latest example: I was walking home and some ~50 year old man yelled from behind me "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING". I immediately said sorry, then realized, how am I supposed to watch behind myself while walking? So then I started laughing. Then he got really angry. That made me laugh even more. So eventually we're walking in the same direction and I can't help to do anything but look at him and keep smiling and laughing while he's getting more and more angry. I used to be like this, with the saying sorry immediately. But after working in DC where most don't say a single word on their commute home, and probably because bumping into each other happens all too often on the subway. Not many other people say it either. Usually tourists from the southern US will. Also, I hate/maybe fear? old people. I dunno active old people don't bother me, but the ones that look like they might drop dead immediately creep me out! yeh here in Texas like 99% of people are super polite ESPECIALLY old people. In the city i live in people that just walk past eachother smile and say hello so i have these habits pretty bad >_< luckily its alot more healthier to have polite habits n_n aren't people in Texas racist lol do you get that because you're white?
Only in some parts of Texas -_-..I'm a Mexican kid but it's all the same, old people are always so nice around here <3.
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On June 26 2010 03:11 Nal_rAwr wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 26 2010 01:35 R0YAL wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:27 Zapperkhan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On June 26 2010 00:56 Chill wrote:
I say sorry out of habit when anything happens, even if it's in no way my fault. Then I get angry at myself for saying sorry. But seriously, it's like hardcoded into my being at this point - if I make contact with any person I automatically say sorry.
The latest example: I was walking home and some ~50 year old man yelled from behind me "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING". I immediately said sorry, then realized, how am I supposed to watch behind myself while walking? So then I started laughing. Then he got really angry. That made me laugh even more. So eventually we're walking in the same direction and I can't help to do anything but look at him and keep smiling and laughing while he's getting more and more angry. I used to be like this, with the saying sorry immediately. But after working in DC where most don't say a single word on their commute home, and probably because bumping into each other happens all too often on the subway. Not many other people say it either. Usually tourists from the southern US will. Also, I hate/maybe fear? old people. I dunno active old people don't bother me, but the ones that look like they might drop dead immediately creep me out! yeh here in Texas like 99% of people are super polite ESPECIALLY old people. In the city i live in people that just walk past eachother smile and say hello so i have these habits pretty bad >_< luckily its alot more healthier to have polite habits n_n aren't people in Texas racist lol do you get that because you're white?
well theres racist people everywhere, a little stereotypical to say Texas people to be racist tho. Also i may have exaggerated a bit with 99%, math is my achilles heel ;p
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On June 26 2010 03:11 Qwerty. wrote:
I like how almost everyone in this thread acts as if they will never be old, they're another species of people or something...you are not immortal, and every "old person" was once your age.
1.) I don't know what you are talking about
2.) what is your point
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pressed quote instead of edit -.-
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On June 26 2010 03:16 Megalisk wrote:
Only in some parts of Texas -_-..I'm a Mexican kid but it's all the same, old people are always so nice around here <3.
ur moving to CS soon right? Better practice saying "Howdy!" 
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the old people in britain stay over two miles outside Mcdonalds and only come out at about 4pm or 10 pm
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On June 26 2010 00:39 kOre wrote:
I said: "Listen you old fuck, I was standing here talking with my friends and you fucking ran into me, if anything you should compensate me and buy me my fucking ice cream, not give me this shit tone because you think you're some old fuck that is better than me"
Maybe it's my own personal convictions here, but I'm of the belief that no matter how much someone hates me, I'm not allowed to hate them back. And I mean hatred in a very general sense -- I think most kinds of anger is a form of hatred, to one degree or another.
Even though this is a minor incident, I have to say from personal experience that anger can slowly become a habit, and the only way to break out of it is to simply forgive the other person. It hurts, but that's the cost (and worth) of forgiveness, ne?
+ Show Spoiler +On June 26 2010 01:49 Old Man wrote:
Dear Young Man,
I’m very sorry. I’m not myself much these days. Time marches on, and looking at the face of what I’ve lived, sometimes it’s hard not to be beaten down by the overwhelming cost of my age and experience. Time was I would’ve apologized profusely and bought you a new ice cream on the spot; these days I often find myself lost, alone and confused.
All my friends have passed on, including my best friend and partner for 58 years, Marie. When she passed last spring, I felt what was left of my youthfulness and vigor leave me and dissipate in the air like a cold breath, hanging for a moment and then vanishing. It’s hard to wake up to an empty house, and a television doesn’t make a very passable substitute for your sole mate. Most days I clean the house and tend to my garden, like Marie would’ve liked. I’m too old to work, and spend an awful lot of time just waiting to pass on myself, in the hope that I might be with her again somewhere.
I don’t like to eat out at restaurants, as eating alone is a profoundly lonely experience for me, but every once in a while I will get some fast food when I run out to the hardware store or the like.
The sad truth is that I couldn’t have afforded to replace your ice cream, despite wanting to. I’m on a very fixed budget, and every measly dollar I spend makes me nervous and worried. It’s not a pleasant feeling to have worked your whole life and find yourself one day with nothing to show for it.
This is puuuuure genius :D I literally said "OH MY GOD" outloud in my office, haha.
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EPT
