In the wrong era

[Jeb_CC]

This might sound kinda crazy to all of you, but I just want to see what you guys think. X3

 

Sometimes, it legit feels like I was born in the wrong time era. >.> Like, is this kinda similar to how transgenders feel about their sexuality and shit? XD Every now and then I'd be doing something very... modern... and I'd just get the sudden urge to stop because it just doesn't feel right or comfortable to me. And it's usually something so simple! Like, I feel this way more commonly from stuff like ordering pizza, driving somewhere, making an online payment, or making a phone call. I have to remind myself; "No... this is COMPLETELY normal. People do this ALL the time." So why do I get the most uncomfortable feelings and emotions from doing that sort of stuff? Like, "I shouldn't be doing this."? I've searched online and apparently there are people who believe they should have been born in some other time period. But the difference is that they can at least specify where they want to or think they'd fit in most, like, the 1800's or the early 1900's or whatever. But I can't place any specific details like that. I just feel like there's something wrong with me doing some random modern shit. And I have no idea why. >.>

Do you guys ever feel the same way, or something similar? Or is this just me? Does anyone have a 'cure' for me? XD

[Zaraki]

I feel pretty similiar. I was born in the late 90s, but I guess I should have been born a few years earlier. I don't really like some of the modern stuff I have to do,but I guess I can't control time.

[Luis]

I would have liked to be born some thousand of years in the future to see the awesome technology and other planets and starts and shit lol

[BTGBullseye]

Honestly, my parents even think I'm a man out of time... They thought I'd do well in the wild west, but I think I could've pulled off just about any pre-industrialized era as well.

[UndeadNecro]

I suppose I agree in the way that I definitely wouldn't mind living in a time where you learned how to live off the land and you could generally go anywhere and it was filled with mystery. exploration, and adventure. Everything could be a new day rather than "Oh, just another walk through your average concrete forest!" [insert more random combinations of words in an attempt to explain] Whenever I have gone for hikes, I always get this "Imagine this as a big part of your daily life" thought. I just feel like earlier centuries were a lot more simpler and probably passed a lot slower than now-a-days.

[AP_Pastor]

I wish I was born in the 70's-80's. Being a teen between the 80's to 90's would have been a blast, if anything it would be an adventure for me.

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

80's movies, 70's cars, 60's rock, 50's jazz, 40's fashion style,...

I'm not sure which era I'd fit in. I guess all of this stuff still exists nowadays, but now we also have these annoying phones.

[AP_Pastor]

^This is why I wish time machines exist.

[SCZephyrinus]

Hmmm, and these aren't new things for you? As in, it isn't among the first times you've done those specific things right? I'll feel weird doing something modern for the first time, as it's a bit awkward compared to just doing it the old fashioned way and just talking to people. Albeit much more practical... Anyways, have you ever been out to poorer areas, like third world country poor? I've never been, but I figure it'd be nice, in it's own way.

[ScottD.Betson]

you know what Jeb, I actually feel like I should have been born in the mid 50s so I could see all the cool bands of the yesteryear

That is why I kid you not I am building a (CENSORED BY UNIVERSAL and COMCAST) and want to be able to live my life until I die in whatever year (for all I know I may die in maybe 2015 and have the 20 billionth movie involving a shark that still looks fake)

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

What about retro-futurism? Maybe we can't live in "the good old days", but we can make today look like them. I love the idea of Dieselpunk and Steampunk.

[ScottD.Betson]

What about retro-futurism? Maybe we can't live in "the good old days", but we can make today look like them. I love the idea of Dieselpunk and Steampunk.

Steampunk and stitchpunk I know of but Dieselpunk I dont, what is it if you dont mind my asking

[Reverend_UshankaCat_]

what is it if you dont mind my asking

Dieselpunk is very similar to Steampunk, but while Steampunk is inspired by the Victorian era, Dieselpunk draws its inspiration from World War I-times.

A bit like Fallout, except "earlier".

 

 

 

 

[BTGBullseye]

Why is there no medievalpunk?

[Descriptor]

Why is there no medievalpunk?

I'd imagine it's because most people don't associate any sort of high technology with the medieval era (not to say there wasn't any, but I mean public perception of idealized eras). That being said, there is something close to that era called Clock-Punk.

Full list here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunkPunk

 

And hey, no reason new genres can't still be created, right?

[UndeadNecro]

Why is there no medievalpunk?

I'd imagine it's because most people don't associate any sort of high technology with the medieval era (not to say there wasn't any, but I mean public perception of idealized eras). That being said, there is something close to that era called Clock-Punk.

Full list here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunkPunk

 

And hey, no reason new genres can't still be created, right?

 

Well, I started playing Wizardry 8 and that has a mix of space-age technology and medieval architecture, etc.

[Psychotic Ninja]

I enjoy cartoons from the 30's-50's, but other than that (and maybe a few other things), I'm where I'm meant to be (and who I am meant to be).

[ScottD.Betson]

If I was to associate anything with Medieval Punk BTG, Id have to say check out for a theme, something from Viking Folk Metal Bands and maybe any other sort of genre like that because you will get something out of nothing with that and Dieselpunk looks kind of cool but clothing wise it looks like something from Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow to some extent but it still looks cool.....

[Selfsurprise]

^ I'm personally looking forward to the time somebody comes up with Paganism-inflected BronzePunk. An impossible metallurgic revolution in Europe that resulted in Janus-faced bearded god robots and computerized henges... :3

 

OT: I hope I'm not coming across as an overtly critical arsehole, but I find something peculiar about the notion of feeling like one belongs in another era. If my interest in history has taught me anything it's that bygone eras can often be hideously traumatic. It's very easy to impose a rose-tinted veneer on any period, and that we in the present can never hope to capture the scope and breadth of complexity of our contemporary world, let alone begin to grasp the magnitude of chance and circumstance of a global moment we are physically and chronologically displaced from. In less obtuse terms, I can't imagine wanting to live at any time other than right now. I'm sure some future pretentious arsehole like me in the 22nd century will be extolling the same sentiments about our terrifying terrorism-filled, politically dodgy, economically unsound, genocidal, holocaust denying, artistically and aesthetically disparate, cat memes laden century - but he or she with have his or her own problems to contend with, both familiar and unimaginable to us.

 

One of the weaknesses that historians often level against alternative history fiction is that it oversimplifies things, and singles out certain events and people as being overwhelmingly pivotal in defining the development of nations and societies. It's always never quite as complicated as a "real" alternative history would invariably be. This idea that we would all be Nazi's if the Nazi's won WW2, or if the Roman Empire never "fell" (which was more of a steady decline, if anything) we would be subjects of a modern Roman Empire, or if Boudica had driven out said Romans from Britain we British would have developed into modern day Celts, etc. They could all make extremely intriguing and entertaining stories, so I don't think it's to diminish the sub-genre as a narrative mode. But it strikes me that an actual alternative history would make the cultural and geographical makeup of the world would make it unrecognizable to us.

 

Let's suspend our disbelief and go with the massive presumption that the human race even evolved at all, which if you ask any evolutionary biologist worth their salt they will tell you was no certainty, and you take the diversity of regional, national, racial, religious, environmental, political, etc denominations of people that really exist today. The variation and co-mingling of said denominations would result in new nations, ideologies, empires, conflicts, alliances and revolutions that would certainly seem wildly alien and unlikely to us. If you asked me to attempt to make up something on the spot with this approach to alternative history in tow (and bear in mind i'm using a language and terminology that may not even apply to it's own unique situation) then I guess it might have to go something along the lines of...

 

An Earth dominated by post-colonial cynic-philosophy inflected neo-libertarian-syndicalist politics from the region we call southeast Asia;

In which some uniquely articulated section of the country we call East Timor was is ascendency as the economic power in the previous century;

In which most of the world's major religions are geo-animist in nature and there is a tendency to incorporate features of a culture's landscape into their iconography;

In which white races are characterized by a post-slavery diaspora and the majority exist in a kind of ghost-venerating occult-anarchist borderless nomadic lifestyle;

In which the greater part of the continent we know as Africa underwent a kind of regional and industrial renaissance and for the last five-hundred years has predominantly existed as a united kingdom of semi-autonomous states - in which many of the aforementioned displaced white diaspora live;

In which mechanic design went hand-in-hand with animal motifs and mythology, resulting in strangely ornate and beastly looking equivalents of vehicles, machines or war, weaponry, factory equipment, computers, household utensils, etc.;

In which non-literalness and abstraction in art is regarded as deeply offensive in many cultures, so that expressionistic, painterly and even minimalist imagery is utilized by underground and counter-cultural movements, particularly in this world's equivalent of extreme music;

In which ad infinitum (I'll never be able to surmise this theoretical world, and everything I've given so far would invariably throw up paradoxes and paradigms that I could never have accounted for)

 

Before I creative therapy myself to death, I think I'll summarize and leave you with the recommendation to never hanker for eras you don't belong in. Your impressions of it isn't ever going to match the reality of that time, and that's no insult to you or anyone else! We all share the same inability to imagine the past without distorting it.