Does anyone ever feel they've been born in the wrong time period?

[SadNoirPlot]

Sigh...most of the time I think I should have been born on a different planet :( .

But on Earth, 11,000 B.C. Zeal will do :P .

[roddy9uk]

I know it's a weird question, but i have always felt that i've been born too late in history. I feel that i should be living in the 50's, maybe it's because i am a conservative and long for a world which reflects my values, a world which i perceive as having existed during the 1950's. A world of bowler hats, real ale in every pub, pipes, respect for authority etc. A time where things were not done in excess and people were more reserved.

It was probably never really like that, but i can't help but feel that that is the world i was supposed to inhabit rather than this morally relativistic, criminal maelstrom which is Britain today.

Rix

Since I was brought up in the 50's it probably accounts for why I feel best suited to that period...

However I was thinking back the other day on the differences to practical life between now and 1958. I was quite amazed really and I would not want to give up the cheap travel, cheap and huge choice of food and clothing, computers, "instant" communication, even kitchen and bathroom "improvements". Some things existed in the 50's but were too expensive but a lot simply didn't exist.

The pace of life was less stressful though I think (for most).

[Skylark]

Sounds like the Victorian era was perfect for asexual women - but I'd only want to go back there if I was from a rich family.

Mind you, I'm awfully pro-feminism, and I'm still not happy with attitudes towards women. I think we have a long way to go yet.

[Rix]

Ah but soph,

Say between now and 2981 we somehow manage to destroy the world, either through nuclear winter or purely the unsustainable nature of our society, and 2981 is a horrible backwards world, or a world only just beginning to emerge from a new dark age? let's face it, you'd have to be pretty optimistic to think that it will be better then.

Even if the world hasn't collapsed by then we might be living in a dystopian world where people are treated like slaves of a small elite.

Aren't i cheerful :D

[stormwind]

Yes, I often feel like I was born too late! I would've liked to have lived in the mid-to-late 1800's, in the Old West or in a wilderness. Live on a homestead in a cabin I built myself, raise my own food, ride or drive a horse everywhere, and be self-sufficient. Live without electricity and heat my house with wood. Live off the land. Of course, people do that nowadays, but I think it would be much harder today with the government telling you what you can and can't do.

People seemed freer then, freer to live their own lives and raise their kids as they saw fit, without the government and laws intruding on every aspect of their lives. Political correctness was unheard of. Most people had better morals, and a clearer sense of right and wrong. Criminals paid for their crimes without being coddled because they might've had a "rough childhood." People had the right to defend themselves, their homes, and families without the fear of being arrested themselves.

If I lived back then, though, I would want to be a man. If I wasn't, I'd be one of those women you sometimes read about in history books, who disguised themselves as men so they could do things that were otherwise off-limits to them. So they wouldn't be expected to stay home and pop out a baby every year. Independant, gun-toting women like Calamity Jane.

The 1960's and '70's sounded interesting, too. Those times had great music. And I could imagine myself as a hippie living in a Volkswagon bus, traveling around the country and selling arts and crafts for a living.

So yes, I feel like I was born too late. I often feel like a misfit in modern-day America.

[DougN]

Yeah and i suppose even if the 50's were anything like i'd imagined them to be, i'd only have the heart break of living through the 60's and subsequent decades and watching the world i cherished turn slowly into the one i hate so much now.

Indeed. After all, if you were 50 years older, you'd still only be 71 now, and hopefully still around!

And I doubt the '50s were anything the way you imagine them, anyway - or the way I imagine them, or possibly even the way people who were around in the '50s remember them.

I tend to be a proponent of the idea that, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." It may be that your personality is such that if you were around in the '50s, you would still long for some earlier period. :)

Say between now and 2981 we somehow manage to destroy the world, either through nuclear winter or purely the unsustainable nature of our society, and 2981 is a horrible backwards world, or a world only just beginning to emerge from a new dark age? let's face it, you'd have to be pretty optimistic to think that it will be better then.

Even if the world hasn't collapsed by then we might be living in a dystopian world where people are treated like slaves of a small elite.

Aren't i cheerful :D

I worry enough about what the world is going to be like in 2081, let alone 2981!

[Ellers]

While I think it would've been neat to see different things in history...I know just about history to know this is where I belong and I <3 being born in 1983. It's my time, you know?! ;-)

[I am Sasquatch]

I reckon I'd fit in during the Renaissance, the Industrial Era (around 1890, but NOT England, somewhere in continental Europe), or even better the Permian-Triassic (?).

[Ignatius]

Wrong universe, more like!

I do prefer the mens fashion during the 18th Century though.

[Dexlar]

Yes, I wish I was born just ten years earlier so I could be a kid in the 80's and young adult in the 90's...

[Rix]

As far as i can remember then 90's sucked.

[Cornfuzzled]

Yes, I wish I was born just ten years earlier so I could be a kid in the 80's and young adult in the 90's...

i was a kid in he 80s, a teenager in the late nineties and a young adult in the 2000s...and im only 24, im trying to figure out what year you were born...

[Cornfuzzled]

<<Yes, I wish I was born just ten years earlier so I could be a kid in the 80\'s and young adult in the 90\'s...>>

i was a kid in he 80s, a teenager in the mid-late 90s and a young adult in the 2000s...and im only 24, im trying to figure out what year you were born...

[jcortese]

I don't feel a longing for any particular time. I do sometimes feel like I was born into the wrong universe, though. Or the wrong species. I've spent most of my life looking at the people around me and feeling like Jane Goodall.

On the hard, practical side, which is almost the only side I have sometimes, I have zero longing for any period of time prior to the creation of antibiotics, medical anaesthetics, and reliable birth control. Yeah, that one's not personally relevant to me, but I fell NO desire to live in a world with any more unwanted babies and tied-down women than are already here, thanks. Birth control and the invention of the washing machine are probably almost completely responsible for the creation of modern opportunities for women.

[BunnyK.]

I have a feeling I could have enjoyed being born in different time periods, but I have such extreme restrictions on it that it almost takes the point completely out of the fantasy.

For example, I think I would have made an excellent old college professor in the Victorian times - when eccentricity was practically part of the job requirement. But for that to happen I'd have to have been born a) male b) intelligent c) part of a family that could get me through the extensive schooling. So, I guess it's not really the time frame that I feel I could have enjoyed so much as a certain set of circumstances.

I've often felt that instead of being born in the wrong time period, I was born in the wrong country - I could have been an excellent Frenchwoman!

[Shinnok]

I really wish I would've been born in 1975 or 1976 because when I would've been about 5 or 4 years old it would've been the 80'S!!!12 the year I always wanted to be in since 1. almost THE best movies were released those years and 2. almost THE best music was out too. The 80's looks like it just would've been awesome all around. I like 80's themes and stuff. If I would've got to pick a time period, that's when I would've been born like in 1975

[Rikusephirosu]

Take me back to when Buddha reached his enlightenment..him and I have much in common.. Plus, that way my friends whom come to me for advice wouldnt be able to call me Buddha if he were there (since they do now.). :)

[waterbear]

I think I was born the wrong species on the wrong planet on a daily basis.

As it relates to the topic though, the late 1800's would be preferable. Victorian morality beats modern culture, but I think starting a farm on cheap land in the Western US wilderness would be ideal.

[zeldahime]

I also often feel like I was born on the wrong time period. I have no idea which period, but I feel it. It's awful, sometimes, and I wonder where that feeling comes from, since I don't usually know much about history, and I agree with people that the knowledge we have of the past is very romanticized.

[Skeleton key]

I always feel this way. I was born either thousands of years to early or too late, I'm not sure, but I am sure that this current culture is alien, constraining and unpleasant in my view. An ancient civilization would do, like Maya or Egyptian, though futuristic developments would probably be more suitable and evolved for the individual, not to mention fascinating. Also it may be nice to be something other than human.

[Grai]

About 10,000BC would be perfect for me.. no technology, having to hunt/forage for everything, create shelters, ride horses to travel, and having to be the best you can be to survive.. ahh, what a dream world!

[Ghizwiz]

LOL yes this topic hits home with me - I've often thought I would have been a perfect match for the Victorian era, if I were in an upper class family that is. I love the Jane Austen novels, the slooowwwww progression of the love stories, with lots of passing of notes and concern for privacy. I would have been thought quiet & reserved, but with decent looks & some talent at the arts & music, I might have been a "cool" kid, instead of the loser I was tagged instead. If I did get married, I'd have held out for a castle LOL and I think it would have been acceptable that I didn't enjoy sex, heck, weren't women supposed to be demure & reluctant about it anyway? Of course it would matter that the "master" of the estate was a kind understanding gentleman and sought his *cough* pleasures elsewhere - discreetly of course.

Oh, and I'd spend my days doing art, entertaining on the piano, dressing in lovely gowns, except for when I was in my riding habit galloping my fine hunters to the hounds...

Uh oh, better wake up! Thanks for the chance to dream anyway. Hey did I see another horse owner on this thread?? I have 5 TB's, my babies!

Back to topic, Jane Austen never married, I've always wondered what the deal was with her. She wrote these fantastic romances, but in reality noone tempted her. I think I'd have liked to have talked to Jane Austen... hmmm maybe in the afterlife.

Cheers,

Ghizwiz

[stella]

I'd like to live in a Star Trek sort of future :lol:

I used to think I'd be happier a few decades in the past, but gender issues and racial issues changed my mind, so I think a optimistic, just a few centuries away, future when humans really respect each other (not this PC thing) and even other species would be perfect.

[Miss Kitten]

I think I was born ten years too early. I was born in 1984 but didn't really get to experience the 80's, the silly, cheesy decade. When else could you wear brightly colored mismatching clothing and be totally styling?

[TheTardis]

Oh, I don't even know. I do like the sound of the 50's because I like the idea of more conservative values, but I also kind of like the 60's, or any period of change where I could challenge things, really think about them. What I really want is to be alive in an era when thinking was a job. You know, ancient greek philosophers and mathmeticians and scientists (and all the combinations in between). It irritates me to no end that if I went out and got a degree in philosophy it wouldn't really get me anywhere today. I would love to spend my life thinking up crazy theories.

But who am I kidding, I love the internet. Maybe the future then? I'm sure there's a pattern in it somewhere, maybe the right era for me will come along long after I'm dead (it can't keep going downhill forever). Hopefully we'll still be alive and kicking when someone invents a time machine, and then we can all go find where we belong.

[agentjones]

If I could choose a year to be born in, it'd probably be either 1920 or 1946, mostly for fashion reasons. I've come to the understanding over the years that for the most part, I don't look good in modern clothing, but put me in a skinny suit and a nice brimmed hat, and look out!

There's also the fact that, though I like a lot of modern music, I think I'd really enjoy being around for days of big band swing and ragtime, not to mention vaudeville, or perhaps a teenager in the hey-day of surf and rockabilly, and then a 20 something for the 60s psychedelic rock and acoustic folk movements, respectively.

It'd be hard to choose for music though; I mean, I'd be picking between Django Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix. That's a tough decision for me.

In any case, I often feel as though my manner and hopeless romanticism are long out of date and out of style compared to my peers, a generation of booze-addled hopheads who's motto in the realm of romance seems to be "shoot first and ask questions later."

Not to mention, either era would poise me to start a glorious career in screen acting, with or without sound.

[Jack of Clubs]

Anyone interested in living in past times, look up the word 'Anachronism' :)

[Dr. Vox]

I feel stuck in the '80s. I love the music, the silly fashions, the movies, and the general culture of that time...but I was born in 1990. I'd love to go back to the '80s and just stay there. D:

heck, any time from the '50s-'80s would be awesome, I love it all.

[~shinigami~]

I wouldn't want to be born in a different time, but I wish I had been born in Japan instead of America. Oh well.

[thatisfuckedup]

I constantly feel that!

except that I feel I have been born in the wrong galaxy! :)