a reply to:
Krneki
I am glad you understood about what I was trying to convey about the sun burning the skin now more than in the past. The weird thing to me is that it
does so on contact with bare skin without necessarily conveying more overall warmth to the rest of the body that is covered.
When I was a kid and into my 20's, we used to bask in the sunshine and enjoy warming up in it. But even if your skin was covered, you'd feel an even
warmth all over. Now, it will burn your exposed skin very fast but covered skin won't necessarily heat up. Your idea about atmospheric composition
being a primary factor sounds solid to me because I noticed the effect was far more pronounced when I visited Los Angeles for the first time last
year. Everyone in my travel group remarked on it. We were all born and raised East Coast folks. I would love to know how it is for the folks in the
industrial regions of China with the pollution so thick you could slice it.
A couple of years ago, I found it possible to actually fall asleep under the sun at Ocean City MD while out on the beach, so long as I threw the towel
over me. I didn't overheat because there was a good breeze blowing. And I didn't burn because my skin was covered. That's not to say I didn't receive
harmful uv rays through the towel fabric. But I didn't feel it.
In contrast, a couple of decades prior, I could not do that even with a breeze because the sun would beat down and warm me like a jacket potato!
(Tinfoil wrapped baked potato for those not familiar with the term).
So I believe something has changed. I just don't know what or how. In the absence of commentary from people going back a few hundred years living
under different levels and kinds of pollution, I can't be sure of much. Other than the fact that despite possessing a college degree, I'm woefully
undereducated about the world around me.
This entire thread has demonstrated to me that I live wrapped in something of a cocoon and that a lot less filters past that cocoon into my awareness
than I ever would have thought.
One reason I have a special fondness for the idea that our existence is a simulation is that I have had one dream in which I was reunited with a
beloved pet who had passed away and I felt surrounded by a love so powerful it dwarfed even the love I feel as a wife and mother for my family.
Wherever my conscience existed in this dream scenario, the simple emotion of love was so real and so encompassing that everything in my waking life
feels pale and watered down and heavily filtered through heavily limited and constrained senses. It's like the difference between eating tomatoes
fresh off the vine from your garden and those sickly pale tomatoes at the grocery store.
That's just one reason I'll share for now. I have others that are a bit stranger and strain credibility a bit too much. I've shared them before on
ATS but I don't care to overload one post to one person with that sort of thing. I enjoy conversing with you and others here and I want to keep the
tone manageable and not go off too skunky for skunkworks all at once. I don't think my part in this discussion has progressed to that point yet. Even
though I'm open to wild theories I also take pride in being a down to earth, sensible and pragmatic person. I value logic. Even if I had no clue
where my stomach was, lol!
Oh before I forget, when I stared at the sun, I did so to the point that after awhile it looked like two disks, not quite matching in size, one laid
over top of the other, a yellow and an aqua one. The yellow was over the aqua I think. But it might have been the opposite. That was over 40 years
ago. My memory of it is by now more fried than my eyes were.