Some sweeping generalisations, not sure we can solve childhood trauma for everybody including ourselves.

But yes in general ghettoes, lack of education and social mobility, social exclusion of groups of people (say by color for example) are bad. These life circumstances can be improved or alleviated by state or public institutions easier than limiting drug supply.

So instead of assigning every addicted person a better trained shrink it might be easier and cheaper to get some prevention going. Reverse school segregation, make better schools financially viable for poor families, support meaningful social support programmes to allow families to leave problematic neighborhoods etc.

You can only save the fucked up ones if they want to be saved and they sure dont. Give them other options early in life. Save them quickly if they drop out of society the first time rather than punish them for life.

Fond memories of childhood, although my recollection is more with Blue Chip Stamps.

I miss my childhood.

I'm overweight as well. 5'6" @ 150lbs. Gained 3 lbs over the past 8-9 mths. I got asthma since childhood. Got much better in my 20-30s. I'm in my late 40s and I have a take the steroidal puffer every night. It's very hard, and not that safe, to be active during these Covid-19 "new normal" times when everything is partially closed (gym's closed and I must wear a mask outside, instantly trigger the short-of-breath for me. So I gave up going outdoor except grocery).

You're absolutely right. I don't get the fat pride thing either. It's not OK health-wise no matter what angle you look at it. Personal "freedom" choice, genetic, physical/mental disease... the latter 2 causes are not shameful, and 99% constantly struggle with it in different degrees of difficulty. But "choice"? That I can't respect.

Russian cartoon sound is not original. It's the newer re-dubbed version. Sounds just wrong Childhood is ruined!

Flashback to my childhood. B/W television days.

I dont subscribe to weird oriental religions which presume being born is a lottery that possibly includes trees and butterflies.

Every person is born to a set of parents into a particular time and place and socio-economic position. That is what defines who you are. You cant say "if I was born black" because that would not be you.

That is not luck, that is your starting line. You race from there, that is where YOU start rolling the dice and having good or bad luck.

You may consider yourself lucky to be who you are and where you are, indeed you may feel some first world shame for being so fortunate, but that is surely superfluous, if you have too much you can offer to help other people.

Humans (unlike newts) need preparation, after you are born you need to practice for many years before you can be let out into the wilderness of modern civilization with any hope of surviving, let alone passing tests.

You remind me of my son, he spent his childhood reading encyclopedias and now he is surprised that he knows everything and other people dont. It came easy to him.

I did not have to work hard most of the time, am doing fine, got most of what I have because I was lucky, but I sure had a lot of opportunities run away from me because I wasnt prepared for them. Also got burned by a lot of things I should have been prepared for.

Waiting for luck is good only if you run out of options to do something.

Funny thing about the bible. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not.

We all end up writing our own personal bible anyway. What's right? What's wrong? You get to decide. You make the choices and the rules.

The bible was not created as something you must believe in. Rather it is the seed that tricks you into creating your own personal bible. The bible you will really live by. You pick and choose what to keep and what to throw away and interpret. There is only one God that will punish you or reward you.

You are that God. You are the God of the world in your head that you created with the bible you wrote for yourself.

You will judge yourself by your own bible in the end because that is all there will be when you lose the person you truly love, whether it be a significant other, a good friend or a child. That is the hell you fall into. The grief you suffer is not anything your brain will be able to help you with. The grief is brought to you by love. Brought to you with good reason.

Your death has nothing to do with you and everything to do with those that love you.

Your childhood heart will be broken. Destroyed.

Luckily you have a spare. A new heart locked in the trunk. It is yours if you can find the key. Get back in the car and turn on the radio. You will hear the voices of the angels sing to you like you've never heard them before. They have been with you the whole time. You just never heard them like you do now with the pain. Their voices are coming to you from the other side of hell. Outside the wall.

Turns out you must make a decision about love and the pain and the emptiness (the Nothing) it can bring you or others. If you are lucky you will throw your bible into the flames and emerge on the other side with your new heart. A well earned heart if you can forgive yourself. Forgiving others is just practice so you know how forgive yourself.

If you can't throw your bible into the flames, then perhaps someone that loves you will be going to hell.

https://youtu.be/0FbtMOGlyKU

Really, love is all you need.

Wish I could upvote 1000 times! Favorite song from my childhood...

That was basically my childhood. Everyone in the neighborhood knew each other. I would go out and play with friends all day, even at night. We used to ride our bikes miles to go to the pool or the store.

I rarely see kids in my neighborhood riding bikes, and if they are, they're only allowed to ride up and down the street right in front of the house.

I feel sorry for kids today having parents that constantly watch them. They're growing up conditioned to always being watched with no freedom.

Also had an amazon yellow neck, loved that bird. Neighbors thought we had a mentally handicapped family member for a while. The bird learned to imitate my mother nagging, same tone and pace. It was spot one. She learned to call my brother down from upstairs, too. That happened plenty. In combination there was more than one instance that I thought my brother was getting reamed out after being called down.
Hard to keep on a nag rant when 10 seconds in the bird starts copying you. The bird didn't last much more than two months after it learned that trick. Best nag-free two months of our childhood, though!

You've been bullied most of your childhood haven't you?

The irony is palpable.
This hyper cynical assessment of cynicism and cynics is some serious Jr high psychology in video form.

I'm clearly a cynic.
I had a decent childhood, with minor neglect but nothing that hurt me, just taught me to enjoy solitude. Like others, I've suffered loss of loved ones, both by death and choice, more often than I deemed fair. Like mom used to say," who told you life was supposed to be fair?" There's no secret hurt I'm brooding over.
I do have worldly experience, I traveled more by 18 than most do in their lifetime, studied at some excellent schools (and some horrific ones) for over a decade after high school, I have plenty of love and kindness in my life, more than I want or think I deserve sometimes. I've been happily married to the same woman for 21 years.
I thought this video was a slap in the face to honest cynics...dismissive of our valid, empirical evidence of how fucked things are, how crappy humanity is, and how little chance there is of solving our problems before it's too late, and infantalizing us as irrational babies lashing out because we've been hurt. Maybe we just refuse to pull the wool over our own eyes because we much prefer ugly truth to beautiful lies.
Edit: also, there's the idea that if you always expect the worst, you're never disappointed.

*rant over