A decade is a long time
 

Saw this and thought it'd be a good conversation starter.

Ten years ago, GD and I were living in our first apartment in Stanton. We had APs but since MousePad didn't exist yet, we hadn't met any of you. We were thick in with our raving friends, having amazing experiences near the end of '99. For NYE Y2K we were back at the Rose Parade, for the coldest, rainiest time ever, ending in a pretty scary riot situation.

It would be another year and a half before the raving faded and our times with you guys would begin.

Strange to think I've been an adult on my own in the big world for over 11 years.

Awww....

I will add that your next two decades will go by way way way too fast.

Take lots of photos/videos and be sure to include the two of you in some of them. Eventually he'll be going to a costume party and want to see how you two dressed back in the day.

Oh my, Moonliner is so right. The last 20 years of my life have been a speedy blur, and I'm having some major midlife re-evaluations right now as a result of seeing just how fast this journey actually goes.

From an outside and far away view, the two of you are in such a wonderful place in the boat ride of life, so please savor it. And, as ML said, document it!

(Full disclosure, I'm working on a musical piece called "Boat Ride of Life" right now, so that phrase was close to hand.)

Yes, it's so quaint to hear of young people who feel a decade is a long time. Hahahahahaha. In less than two more, they'll be watching the decades FLY by.


Of course, my particularly addled mind doesn't really recall 1999 all that well. I think a lot happened in the, for lack of a better term, MillenniO's ... but culturally was a wash. That's not to say that cultural technology was a wash ... there's been amazing progress and touchstones in that arena. But style, fashion, music, and pop culture seems ... admittedly without the benefit of hindsight ... to have no super-discerning qualities such as typically characterized all but the final decade of the 20th Century.

Is the new millennium the age of MEH?

Only for you, babe. ;) As I've said a million times before, ask a teen or 22 year old what's changed in the last decade, and they'll tell you what an amazing, life-changing era it's been.

Well, tell me. I'm not talking about what's changed. I'm talking about the ... wow, I don't know the word for it. The essence that would let you have a theme party for the 20's, the 30's, the 40's, the 50's, the 60's, the 70's and the 80's ... but, and I say this as a MASTER of the theme party, NOT for the 90's or the Millennium to date.


an iPhone tuned to a facebook page is NOT the makings of a theme party. What am I missing?


Amazing change has taken place through ALL those decades I just listed. I don't think change has accelerated any more recently than its speed when I was born half a century ago. It's just different things that are changing. Maybe it's the technological flavor of recent change that makes it seem different or faster than past change.

So true.

For a 10 year old a year lasts 1/10 of his reality.

For a 40 year old a year only takes 1/40.........

For a 60 year old a year only takes 1/60, practically a blink of the eye.

This is why Christmas keeps coming earlier and earlier each year....because our population is an aging one.

This is why when you look in the fridge of someone over 70 there's certain to be at least one food container with a use by date from the last Olympiad.

This is why older drivers go so slow....to them they're flying.

This is why I am not the least bit jealous of those who live into their 100's.....those last couple of decades must have flown by so fast that perception wise they really didn't live much more than a few weeks longer than someone who only made it to 85;)

that was really good.

I think it's awesome that I've known several people here for almost 8 years.
:)

Having lived through 5 decades now, I'd have to say the one with the most change ... or seeming change that never quite fulfilled its promise ... was the Sixties. I think, though it didn't go far or fully enough, culture and society changed in that decade more than any ten before or since.

And I didn't even have any other decades to compare it to at the time, but I felt in my soul a gladness over so many people waking up about religion, our political system, war and peace, racial justice, and so much more.


Though the giant leaps forward in those areas achieved during that small 10-year span have only inched forward since, I think that decade's progress has had the most impact on our lives today ... and really marks a dividing point in Before and After in American life and consciousness.


And though I think the Millennio's is a prime candidate for Best Technological Improvements ... I don't think the 60's was any slouch in the tech department. Certainly science and exploration has seen nothing like the Moon Missions in the intervening 40 years. Yes, computers, cellphones, the internet, and the cool devices that combine it all make our individual lives so incredibly enriched as we approach 2010 ... but is mankind more technically advanced for those inventions than it was for reaching its planet's moon as we approached 1970?



I'm really glad time seems to flow slower when you're young. The 60's lasted a good, long time for me. As my favorite decade, that seems a nice reward. :cheers: