# What do you wish you never discovered? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 26, 2003, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317 "2003-11-26T03:35:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/41 "2003-11-29T06:27:38Z")
The horrifying secrets and arcane knowledge of that old moth-ridden book hidden away in the library of Miskatonic University. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Ellis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/977dab/32.png) [@Michael\_Ellis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Ellis)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/42 "2003-11-29T06:33:28Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Eternal \* > \*\*The horrifying secrets and arcane knowledge of that old moth-ridden book hidden away in the library of Miskatonic University. \*\* Ditto. ---
**Author:** ![Molson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Molson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molson)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/43 "2003-11-29T06:46:40Z")
I wish I’d never discovered radium. Sure it got me the Nobel prize, but it also killed me with cancer. Or was that Marie Curie? Well, one of us. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/44 "2003-11-29T06:49:30Z")
**Buffy the Vampire Slayer**. Seriously, some great stuff has come from it (including the higlight of my young life) and I’ve enjoyed every twisted second of my overwhelming obsession… But you know, sometimes obsessions can be exhausting. ---
**Author:** ![Kobaltblu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/77aa72/32.png) [@Kobaltblu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobaltblu)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/45 "2003-11-29T07:02:06Z")
• That despite how good you can be as a person, and how virtuous you can try to live your life, you can still get screwed six ways from Sunday and the other person (or persons) will go on and live happy lives and not give one nanoshit about what they did to you. • That you may never find out what really happened…_(fill in your own scenario here._ • That things don’t work out like they do in the movies, where loose ends are tied up and everything works out. • That when you were 14 and thought one day you were going to go find yourself on stage at the Academy awards, or sitting next to a stack of books that you’re autographing while sales climb the bestsellers list, setting up base camp at the foot of Mt. Everest, or watching your show open at the Whitney, and realize that won’t happen. • That that phrase that people say sometimes, “God never gives you more than you can handle,” is bullshit. Sometimes people get too much to handle. Sometimes they get so much that they die. Sometimes they get so much they make themselves die. • That you can love someone with every fiber of your being, give them every moment of your time, support their ideas, their dreams, their needs, tell them that you love them, fuck them like a kentucky derby racehorse, and they might still jettison you like the frozen waste from a commercial jetliner falling onto someone elses’ backyard. • That after all this you can still wake up in the morning, like Shirley Maclaine in “Sweet Charity,” wishing the ground could open up below you straight to the core of the earth, drop you in and vaporize you, but you find yourself getting up anyway for a reason to believe and go on and look for justice, the answer, your dream, a way to deal, and lastly, true love. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. ---
**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/46 "2003-11-29T07:16:55Z")
That men will look no matter what (porn retail days and life lessons). That changed a lot for me in regards to love and trust. _That you can love someone with every fiber of your being, give them every moment of your time, support their ideas, their dreams, their needs, tell them that you love them, fuck them like a kentucky derby racehorse, and they might still jettison you like the frozen waste from a commercial jetliner falling onto someone elses’ backyard._ **AND** … _That that phrase that people say sometimes, “God never gives you more than you can handle,” is bullshit. Sometimes people get too much to handle. Sometimes they get so much that they die. Sometimes they get so much they make themselves die._ Oh, yeah… these two really hit home. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Babbington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Mr.Babbington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Babbington)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/47 "2003-11-29T07:19:09Z")
That sucks, **Sanguine**. Something up? ---
**Author:** ![auliya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/90db22/32.png) [@auliya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auliya)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/48 "2003-11-29T12:06:38Z")
smoking… and domestic violence. Not necessarily in that order ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/49 "2003-11-29T12:18:59Z")
Smoking Being apart from one I love ---
**Author:** ![Baby\_Fish\_Mouth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a8b319/32.png) [@Baby\_Fish\_Mouth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baby_Fish_Mouth)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/50 "2003-11-29T13:16:41Z")
I wish I had never been allowed to watch any schmaltzy romantic comedy with a formulaic happy ending. The kind of movie where the characters do eveything wrong, or little at all, and still end up living happily ever after with the love of their lives. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/51 "2003-11-29T20:59:25Z")
I only tried speed once. It wasn’t a bad experience. But in retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Bluesman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@Bluesman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluesman)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/52 "2003-11-29T22:41:54Z")
I wish I had never discovered the hate I am capable of after watching _other_ haters murder and decapitate someone, all because their victim was of a different race. I wish I still had the illusion of myself from before I’d seen that. But now I know a bit about myself that I wish I didn’t. And I hate 'em all the more for it. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Sam\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_H)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/53 "2003-11-30T07:16:35Z")
That someone you truly hated in high school had published a novel with a major publisher. And was about to have her second novel published in the spring. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/54 "2003-11-30T20:15:51Z")
That I’m at a high risk of having a heart attack before I turn 40. In the genes apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/55 "2003-11-30T20:33:06Z")
I wish I never used speed. It was on a prescription for ADD. After a while, it just started making me depressed. At one point, I felt like all I had to live for was the feeling I got when the stuff wore off and all the color seeped back into the world. I so hated it when I knew what it was doing to me but I couldn’t stop taking it because I thought my parents and psychiatrist and teachers would force me to go back on it. As it turned out, my dad did think that one could just will oneself out of drug-induced depression, but my psychiatrist understood me and convinced him of the reality as well. And now I have a bunch of bottles of the shit lying around, and it’s pretty difficult sometimes to keep myself from selling it. I also wish that I hadn’t discovered that the main reason I haven’t sold any of it is because I don’t want to be responsible if someone buys from me at a party and has a heart attack. (It’s not that I wouldn’t want to take responsibility–it’s that I’d hate to think about the fact that I was the reason that something happened to that person.) ---
**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/56 "2003-11-30T23:03:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Babbington \* > \*\*That sucks, **Sanguine**. Something up? \*\* I’ve noticed that bad stuff doesn’t really happen to bad people, not like what happens to the good folks out there. Having my daughter diagnosed with autism really struck my heart. She never did anything wrong, she’s a good one, an angel. My ex also abused her for the first two months of her life. What lesson (for those God-loving types who think God gives you what you can handle) is she supposed to have received from that, huh? Or me, for that matter? If I was supposed to learn to love myself and/or leave him, why give _her_ such a horrible start to her life, eh God?? Why not something directed at me? And love is a whole other book, **Mr. Babbington**. ---
**Author:** ![Kobaltblu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/77aa72/32.png) [@Kobaltblu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobaltblu)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/57 "2003-12-01T00:10:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SanguineSpider \* > \*\*I’ve noticed that bad stuff doesn’t really happen to bad people, not like what happens to the good folks out there. Having my daughter diagnosed with autism really struck my heart. She never did anything wrong, she’s a good one, an angel. My ex also abused her for the first two months of her life. What lesson (for those God-loving types who think God gives you what you can handle) is she supposed to have received from that, huh? Or me, for that matter? If I was supposed to learn to love myself and/or leave him, why give _her_ such a horrible start to her life, eh God?? Why not something directed at me? > > And love is a whole other book, **Mr. Babbington**. \*\* SanguineSpider, that hurts to hear. I’m sorry if I brought up something that recalled your painful experience, especially since I was attempting to use black humor. I myself was very abused and neglected as a child, yet still reached adulthood wanting to find out the why of it, thinking that if I lived my life well, loved as I should, wrote the thank-you notes, etc, it wouldn’t ever happen again. I was angry and resentful of my scars, my broken bones, as if I was never going to be “good” again. Somehow I took comfort that it wasn’t a personal thing, that I wasn’t receiving retribution for a sin. I hope your angel heals well. ---
**Author:** ![Kobaltblu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/77aa72/32.png) [@Kobaltblu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobaltblu)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/58 "2003-12-01T00:18:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SanguineSpider \* > \*\*I’ve noticed that bad stuff doesn’t really happen to bad people, not like what happens to the good folks out there. Having my daughter diagnosed with autism really struck my heart. She never did anything wrong, she’s a good one, an angel. My ex also abused her for the first two months of her life. What lesson (for those God-loving types who think God gives you what you can handle) is she supposed to have received from that, huh? Or me, for that matter? If I was supposed to learn to love myself and/or leave him, why give _her_ such a horrible start to her life, eh God?? Why not something directed at me? > > And love is a whole other book, **Mr. Babbington**. \*\* SanguineSpider, that hurts to hear. I’m sorry if I brought up something that recalled your painful experience, especially since I was attempting to use black humor. I myself was very abused and neglected as a child, yet still reached adulthood wanting to find out the why of it, thinking that if I lived my life well, loved as I should, wrote the thank-you notes, etc, it wouldn’t ever happen again. I was angry and resentful of my scars, my broken bones, as if I was never going to be “good” again. Somehow I took comfort that it wasn’t a personal thing, that I wasn’t receiving retribution for a sin. I hope your angel heals well. ---
**Author:** ![Kobaltblu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/77aa72/32.png) [@Kobaltblu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobaltblu)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/59 "2003-12-01T00:19:31Z")
sorry for the duplicate post. System error! ---
**Author:** ![Noelq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noelq/32/16438_2.png) [@Noelq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noelq)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317/60 "2003-12-01T00:43:21Z")
That no matter what, no matter how much you admire someone, or believe that they are somehow above it all, that all people are… people. Everybody has faults, and everybody has problems, no matter how much you wish they didn’t. Whenever you put someone on a pedestal, its only that much further for them to fall to earth. And I learned much too late in life that Life should be LIVED to the fullest, and that you should enjoy every damn day you are given. Shyness and hesitation only leads to a boring, predictable life, and that the true fun in this existence comes from DOING, not from WATCHING. And I learned much too late that… Its not my fault. Things happen in the world… and its not my fault. Homelessness, Prejudice, Poverty, Injustice… all exist, and I should try and improve it whenever I can, but I am not the root cause of all of it, no matter what the Media, Government, or Social Groups tell me. Until it is my boot grinding in the face of someone else… Its not my fault. And I learned that no matter what they tell you in High School and College, being an individual is a good thing. Trying to fit in with the masses only leads to problems, because some people are destined to lead their own lives. Trying to foil this… causes Karmaic boots-to-the-head on a too-frequent basis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-wish-you-never-discovered/215317.md?page=4)