I remember experiencing the world much more vividly when I was a little boy.

I would step outside on an autumn evening and feel joy as the cool breeze rustled the leaves and caressed my skin. In the summers, I would listen to the orchestra of insects buzzing around me. I would waddle out of the cold swimming pool and the most wonderful shiver would cascade out of me as I peed in the bathroom. In the winters, I would get mesmerized by the simple sound of my boots crunching the snow under me.

These were not experiences that I actively sought out. They just happened. I did not need to stop to smell the figurative roses, the roses themselves would stop me in my tracks.

As I got older, I started feeling less and less and thinking more and more.

I’ve tried meditation, recreation, vacation, resignation, and medication. Some of these things have helped but I am still left wondering… is this a side effect of getting older? Or is there something wrong with me?

  • RBWells@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know about normal, but I have more than 50 years and not jaded yet - the dish soap making bubbles still delights me, the beautiful sky makes me stop and stare, the smell of the night blooming jasmine, the world is just so incredible I don’t know how anybody can really get used to it. Like, the fact that you get to exist at all, with consciousness and a physical body, it’s not something I can take for granted.

    Now if you mean am I more busy or distracted now? I think again the answer is no but I didn’t like childhood and have enjoyed being an adult.

    I would suggest a dream journal and trying to lucid dream, if your waking self has lost its sense of wonder

    • ProfezzorDarke@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      See, and that guy is proof not everyone get’s recessive depression. I wish you dear luck staying like this, dude.

    • anon@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      the dish soap making bubbles still delights me

      I’m guilty of being an old-ass adult and buying myself a disney bubble machine when I saw it on the spot for myself (and the dogs).