Someone Asked “What Are You Certain Of, Right Down To Your Bones, Without Proof?” And 40 Folks Delivered
We perceive reality judging the facts we are given. We know that some things are true because we have proof or logical explanations for them. But there are things that we just know are true that we don't have evidence for. It might be things in your personal life or just about life in general.
Because there is no evidence for such things, everyone can believe what they want. Reddit user UnbentJohnson came up with the question, "What do you KNOW is true without evidence? What are you certain of, right down to your bones, without proof?" The Reddit thread got nearly 100k upvotes and more than 50k people shared what they believe is true but it could be difficult to convince others that it is.
What would you answer to this question? We are curious to know, so leave a comment down below and upvote the answers that you feel might be true!
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Not everyone is meant to raise a child. Just because you can biologically create a child or financially support one does not mean you are meant to raise one.
No matter what happens, no matter what I do or don’t do, no matter what I achieve or fail at: I know my dog will still love me and wag his tail when I get home.
That gardening is the secret to happiness.
Sounds super strange, especially coming from someone like myself - an ex world of Warcraft gamer. I had kids, got busy with work, wanted out of the suburbs, got some land in the country, and started planting stuff. Years later I have what I call a food forest. I have replaced lawns with fruit trees, bushes, vines, flowers, all woven together to mimic a natural forest - except everything in it is edible.
It has changed my life completely.
I just think there's something about being outside in the sun, feet on soil, hands in dirt, planting s***. Watching it grow in the background of your life. Going out and checking on it and watching how much bigger it is getting. Watching life find it, and now you get to live WITH the natural world, not isolated from it.
Birds making nests in your trees, frogs making home in your ponds, seeing bees all around your flowers, butterflies everywhere. Rabbits and squirrels moving in, then owls moving in to eat those. It's this wonderful trophic cascade that you started, and it's incredibly rewarding.
Plus, being able to just walk outside and get chemical-free nutrient-rich dinner is amazing.
I actually think a big reason depression is such a big thing these days is because we have all become so disconnected from the life that we evolved in for the last 6 million years. We evolved walking around savannahs and forests, pulling food off bushes and trees, out in the sun, feet in the soil, hands in the dirt. We couldn't be further from that, living inside our isolated homes, cars and offices. It's no wonder we're all so depressed.
I think gardening is the secret to happiness.
That may well be the case. I too garden. But- this is completely subjective. A gear head may say fixing cars is the "key to happiness", an ascetic may say not indulging is-
I have a garden but I hate it. I hate being out in the sun, getting my hands dirty and bending over kills my hip. I have the garden because everyone around me pressured me into it. Definitely not for me.
Haha, same! Bought a house with a big garden, convinced I'd get into it. Nope. Hate, hate, hate it. The bugs, the dirt, the bending over, the constant battle against the elements (water the plants, it's too dry, whoop, now it's too wet and there's weeds everywhere, whoop, now it's autumn, time to rake those leaves). Yuck.
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First thing we did in the suburbs was overturned our lawn planted food and natives now I have a herd of bumble bees
I couldn't live without access to internet, I'll admit that, but I also couldn't live without having even a small space to call a garden, where I can grow some herbs and such, which is what I currently am doing, alongside some tomato plants and peppers etc. When you have something you grow that you can turn into a meal that same day there's such a sense of pride that makes you feel great. That said, unfortunately sometimes sadness and depression can't be helped, I'm Schizophrenic and have DID so my mental health is rubbish, but gardening is a good way to keep your mind off of things too.
Hard disagree on this one. You found your passion and that's fantastic for you, but everyone's secret to happiness differs. My parents love to garden but I despise it. I take greater comfort in city noise than wildlife noise. People suffer from harsh allergies to the point of death. Again, good for you, but never assume what works for you is an insta fix for all.
I love the wild, the forests, the mountains, the moors, but not those manicured lawns and flower pots.
Spot on. We've begun the process of creating a food forest. This year, in addition to our normal huge vegetable garden, we planted blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
Unless you have no space, why don't you start one now? And if you are in a living situation with no space, like an apartment, why don't you find a community garden? Of course, I could be completely misreading your situation, but just wondering!
Load More Replies... Humans aren't made for living in concrete boxes. Something primal in us responds to being out in nature, I think. Unfortunatly, most of us don't have the luxury to live like that.
Um. There are types of depression that is due to how a brain is wired ... you could have the most lush, healthy food garden and STILL have depression. Also, what does being an ex-WoW player have anything to do with sounding weird?
Yes but the point is that nature etc can help alleviate symptoms. Maybe not fix it completely but definitely improve the chances of healing. And the WoW remark was saying he went from being an indoor video gamer to an outdoor gardener. Some people are both but he clearly wasn’t. And the gardening helped his depression whereas the video gaming wasn’t.
Load More Replies... An ex Warcraft gamer is exactly who I would expect to garden and have opinions about it. I don’t find anything compelling or happy about gardening, it’s just a task. Love, friendships, pets, time and money are the secrets to happiness.
A task for you perhaps but a hobby for others. Just like cooking and baking is a task for some but a hobby for others.
Load More Replies... I just started gardening and now I'm hooked...I can totally relate to this one.
"What are you certain of, right down to your bones, without proof?” But there is proof gardening does wonders for better mental health, or "happiness". https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/think-act-be/201906/10-mental-health-benefits-gardening
It's been proven in many studies that being outside in nature is a huge boon to mental health; sunlight gives you Vitamin D which helps alleviate depression, and just looking at and being around greenery reduces depression and anxiety.
I'm not sure what this has to do with being an ex WoW player. I know plenty of gamers who love the outdoors, nature, and hiking.
I want to do this so much. I have a front and back garden of just grass. I just don't know where or how to start. I would have to go very slowly, I do not have the funds to pay work to be done and I am older now and not sure I could do this myself even little by little. I'm sure it would help my depression and sense of no purpose but that is the very thing that cripples me most days and stops me even trying. Please save any criticism, today is a down enough day.
It this poster is confused about depression is Clinical depression is not solved with gardening Being sad or down or depressed in the moment absolutly can be solved with gardening for many people but not all
This is beautiful. And I know it to be true. I grew up in such an environment and it was so grounding and centering. There was something so wonderful about being able to go and harvest your own dinner and make a delicious, healthy meal from scratch. It made me feel connected to the earth and our land, and once I left home, I have not had that feeling since. Of course, I have only lived in cities since college, but sometimes I really long to have my own garden again and have delicious garden vegetables on the table for every meal.
I can't garden, I'm allergic to the molds present in soil, and air, and everywhere.
It is true! We are part of the earth. Just like the wild creatures. Things that grow are here to sustain us. We lost that connection along the way. Sadly many never have been in a garden, or eat fresh things from the soil. All asphalt, concrete and packaged foods.
With my spare time I make quilts and I feel exactly the same way as I do when I garden. Picking fabric colours, selecting a pattern, cutting, sewing, wadding, quilting, edging, sewing a label on it then giving it away feels exactly the same as tending to a garden. Creative, rewarding, meditative, and giving. Everyone in my family has at least 2 quilts, friends, neighbours, everyone has a quilt and I know when it's cold, the people I love and care about are warm under my quilt
This might be taking it the wrong way but it sounds like he said he got fed up of his partner and kids and left them and started a new life? I mean the rest of it is great, but I can't tell if that's what he meant or not?!
How many kids today have never run barefoot in grass that hasn't been sprayed with poisons, or played games that didn't have any rules written by someone else?
My grandchildren will never know the joys of a clean, unpolluted swimming hole.
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mask-free fresh air and sunshine are literally some of the best medicine you can take.
I agree. I didn't have even single houseplant for past ten years. Then pandemic hit and I got to spend a lot of time in the countryside ar my parents house, work remotely and do some gardening. Six moths ago I moved to countryside, I have a small yard with lots of flowers and some herbs and veggies growing and I'm happier than ever since I was a kid.
It’s a calming and soothing hobby, my husband found cooking to do this for him
We re-did the entire garden and filled it with native plants, and what felt like just overnight it started attracting all these native birds and insects - some of which I'd never seen before, like the Blue-Banded bee! Our garden went from a depressing patch of lawn and a half dead wattle tree to alive with birdsong, and it's amazing. We don't have to go to the park for picnics any more. :D
This is easy enough to prove, like most hobbies. Surely there are studies that prove that investing time in a hobbie increases levels of dopamine, etc.. For me is cooking, extra happiness if cooking for someone else.
Gardening, what do they call it, yarding? Just a though because I love gardening, natural and edible please
"What do Americans call it" sorry seems to have been missed out
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Gardening got me out of a depression. I do most of my dad's garden work all summer because I love it and he's lazy :p
That there is other intelligent life in the universe. We may never encounter it, certainly not within any of our lifetimes, but it's out there somewhere. The universe is too goddamn big for us to be the only ones.
It would be the height of human conceit to think that we're the only ones in such a vast universe.
That the near complete absence of financial literacy education in American public schools is 100% on purpose.
I agree with this to a point. We allow politicians who like to boast about how they did poorly in school, were the class clowns, etc dictate what should be taught in school. If you're the rich people who want to keep good education out of reach for the poorer people the best way to do that is to vilify public schools and demand more 'rigorous' testing policies that have little to do with actual student progress. This way the public schools have to spend more time testing than they do teaching so that the poor students get less education than the kids whose parents can afford private schools who aren't subject to those required tests. It's funny how politicians constantly point to public schools' failing standardized test scores, and tout private schools as the answer, yet never talk about how those private schools don't have to offer Special Education, take standardized tests, or even follow the mandated common core standards.
That we would be happier if we returned to a more natural way of living rather than the 9-5 rat race.
Flat earthers are just doing it for attention. They really don't think the earth is flat.
The Flat Earth Society is trolls. They HAVE however gotten OTHERS to believe them.
If I'm stuck in traffic and switch lanes because the other lane looks like it will move faster, the lane I just switched from will automatically go faster.
i'm pretty sure big rig truckers talk on their CB radios to each other to coordinate making sure every time I merge onto an interstate one of them will be there in the right lane just as I am merging on.
Most company CEO's don't really know what they're doing. Whether their business thrives or fails has more to do with luck than anything else. There are exceptions, but most of them have a completely warped sense of their own "brilliance".
I'm quietly convinced I made a bestselling mystery novelist change the way he writes because I criticised him on Reddit.
The novelist in question is Chris Carter; the books are the Robert Hunter series. (Yes, the guy who has built a career on looking for serial killers is named Hunter. He works for the LAPD's Ultra-Violent Crime Unit. It's not a series that's overburdened by subtlety, is what I'm saying.) They are as schlocky a bunch of thrillers as you could ever hope to find, but for some reason I can't get enough of them, despite the fact that they're... very much not great. They lean pretty damn heavy on ridiculous tropes, and I've never seen a more Mary Sue lead than I have in this series, but the biggest complaint I have with them is that the same line appears almost literally word for word in the first nine books ('Hunter’s biggest passion was single malt Scotch whiskey, but unlike most, he knew how to appreciate its flavor and quality instead of simply getting drunk on it.'). I made a comment about it on Reddit on an r/books thread about your favourite terrible authors.
That post was made in January of 2019; in April, his book Hunting Evil came out, and the line was nowhere to be seen. I didn't think much of it until his new book, Written in Blood, came out a few days ago, and also didn't have the line in it. This comment is also one of the top answers if you google his name and the book series via Reddit -- exactly what you'd do if you were looking to see if people on the internet were talking about your books. I also can't find any evidence of anyone else pointing this out in a review or suchlike.
So yeah... in short, three months after I made that comment, he broke the habit of a decade of writing and finally decided that after nine stories that used this as a crutch for Hunter's personality, it was too much.
I know you're reading this, Chris. I know.
100 years from now only a handful of kids and grandkids will have any memory of my life.
200 years from now, at most I'll be a photo in an old family scrap book with my name in the margin space.
300 years from now no one in my family will know I existed outside of a half finished family tree.
Yet ultimately all of their hopes and pains, successes and failures, dreams and depressions will be the direct result of my having existed. So it isn't that bad.
The average middle class person of today has luxuries and a standard of living that far surpasses that of Kings and Queens from centuries ago.
1 in every 3 or 4 people is not capable of critical thinking. And I'm not making some kind of point about politics or anything - I mean those people are literally incapable of taking in information and synthesizing it with other information and coming to their own conclusions. They're basically robots programmed by whatever source is most convincing to them.
Everyone is capable of critical thinking, it's just that people compartmentalize that which they think critically about, and that which is off limits to questioning or skeptical inquiry.
My phone is listening to me, it’s simply not a coincidence any more how my targeted ads change directly related to and after a conversation. People say we are just more predictable than we think but I mention something I haven’t even thought about for years and there it is on Instagram.
How's this for freaky. I was hanging out with my brother and we were talking about inflatable spas. At that time my phone had no internet access AT ALL, it was completely disabled from the actual phone provider. Anyway, I get home later and go on the ipad. As soon as I open facebook there is an ad for an inflatable spa. Like wtf, how does that even happen.
I don't care who you are or what you think, or even what the science says - Geese are evil creatures.
That a LOT more famous actors than we realize are secretly the children of other famous actors from the previous generation. I call it the Hollywood Bastard Theory.
Back when I was 10 there was a competition for schoolkids to write a treatment for an episode of Doctor Who, with the best one being developed into an full episode in the next series and the winner receiving a writing credit. I was a huge fan of DW at the time and the competition was actually run through schools, so my teacher made the entire class do it, but I was very excited.
I began writing a story about the Doctor landing on a planet full of defective cybermen, who's programming had gone a wry and had been left on this asylum planet to rot. The Doctor lands there in response to a mysterious distress call from a woman and attempts to find and save her while avoiding the dangerous dysfunctional cybermen and the looming threat of planetary destruction at the hands of the normal cybermen. I finished my short treatment and gave it to my teacher to submit. Unfortunately it turned out the competition was very strict about the formatting of submissions and mine was returned because I had used the wrong formatting in some way, it seemed like a weird reason. I was a bit disappointed and that was the end of that.
But then, a year or two later, there was an episode of DW called Asylum of the Daleks, which seemed incredibly similar to my story except with Daleks. So incredibly, eerily, similar in fact, that to this day I am absolutely convinced that Steven Moffat saw my script and came up with a formatting excuse so that he could remove me from the competition, steal my story, change the bad guys and claim it as his own. I have zero evidence, I don't even still have the treatment I wrote, or any letter from the BBC about my submission, and yet I know in my bones that Steven Moffat stole his script from 10 yr old me.
My wife's school was doing a production of Grease. (As faculty, she had a bit part she totally hammed up.) Colin Ferguson was supposed to be in town doing a standup show that got cancelled. The next night his stand-up kept referencing Grease. Everyone his age has seen Grease... from America. But why suddenly make jokes about a 40+ year-old play?
That alien lifeforms will be nothing like we have ever imagined
There’s a travel agency that’s been around in my town for as long as I can remember. I wholeheartedly believe it’s a front for the mob.
Epstein didn’t kill himself
That the entire U.S. mattress industry is a front for criminal organizations. Virtually every city has more mattress stores than it needs. When was the last time you bought a mattress? So then why does a city of 80,000 have like 7 separate mattress retail places within like six blocks?
They rent the showrooms out to prostitution. (That's a joke. I hope.)
There is some godzilla s*** at the bottom of our oceans. Deep Sea gigantism will not fail me.
I am essentially a good, decent person. I may not act this out successfully, it’s the fact that I keep trying to act it out relentlessly that makes it true.
Most of this is just busy work
Most jobs can be done with 6 hour days 4 days a week. This insanity about working 8-6 Monday to Friday is just to keep people busy so they don't have time to look at the way the world is being steered by the super rich.
That 1-2 generations down the line, our use of technology will lead to extreme mental health issues. My brain feels deep fried from time to time and I haven't seriously started using a smart phone before I was already an adult
I’m really, really f*****g lucky. But like in a subtle way like if there’s a 95% chance I’ll get hurt doing something stupid I’ll come out unscathed. Sometimes I think there’s a guardian angel watching over me making sure I don’t kill myself by being an idiot.
I seem to be really lucky/blessed and 'land on my feet'. Get my sister who's a really good person seems to be cursed
Life on other planets. Not green one eyes aliens but even insect's and things like that
Again, there has to be other life somewhere in the universe. It's 100% out there somewhere.
As an Asian, I can safely say without a doubt that you don't need cups to measure the water when cooking rice.
Not that it is something I believe to be true, but something that I often think about is the Butterfly Effect. Like little things I do during the day could affect the total outcome of my day.
My brother deleted my game save on purpose. He was old enough to read, he knew what he was doing.
Dogs go to doggy heaven
All pets go to the sunny fields outside the gates of Heaven and wait for us. When we die, they’ll be there and will walk through the gates with us.
Dejavu comes from previous dreams
My ex-boss used Covid as an excuse to make me redundant because I was the only member of his team to be hired by someone else and not him.
That my last boss secretly hated me even though we had, on the surface, a very positive relationship.
Nothing wrong with this, so long as they didn't hinder you or affect you emotionally. ( You don't have to like anyone so long as you do no harm).
That my cousin stole my holographic 1st edition Charizard Pokemon card back in the early 2000's.
That the funeral home by my house is run by some sort of criminal organization.
I always see the same gangster looking guys hanging out in front of it smoking cigars and drinking beers.
I watched flight 93 go down. I would never share that in real life because it’s f****n grim and no one would believe you (the geography of the reports are off ). I saw it clear as day from Kent state’s main campus (Ohio). I didn’t know what I was seeing other than I remember thinking “that plane is way way too low (we had a aviation college so planes were common) and too big and it’s jerking around like how a toddler drives a power wheels truck....”. Continued on to class. You don’t wanna be late even at a liberal college.
I'm not sure what you saw, but you didn't see a plane that crashed around 200 miles away from you. There were enough ordinary people who WERE in that part of Pennsylvania that DID see it crash and then there were all the reporters who went out to that place, who are not part of a conspiracy to pretend that the plane crashed around Canton, Ohio just because. Like you said, you're next to an aviation college. That would be the most likely explanation for it.
Reddit supermods have the ability to give unlimited free awards on reddit. This allows them to make certain opinions more visible and normalizes paying real money for reddit emojis.
ah, back when Reddit had no subs, there were no 'awards', no ads, no trolls, back before the great digg migration. Back when it was this small site few knew about and when we saw mention of it anywhere else we were like, quick! hide! we've been spotted! Those were the good old days.
Note: this post originally had 46 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Same thing if you steal the snacks form a family member
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I am now off to explore the surrounding town centres to see which local businesses are a front for organised crime, secret government agencies and other life forms living here under cover
I nominate our local thai restaurant. Not once has there been a customer inside.
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Very interesting post. I hope to see more like this in the future. I do agree with the alien theories for sure, simply from a mathematical perspective.
I think we share earth with life forms that our 3 dimensional senses cannot conceive . Sometimes we mistake them for ghosts or aliens if we catch a glimpse. Why? Because I know that there are hundreds of life forms right now that cannot conceive of us for instance creatures who know the world only by taste or smell or touch. I often wonder as well what ants recognise, is human distinct to them from DOG or are we all strange blobs that they don't differentiate between from their tiny little perspectives.
That reincarnation is real and time does not go in a line but a circle
Similarly to the Dr Who text, I remember once drawing fan art for a game and sending it to this publishers fan art email address. Later when the game was released, there was a vehicle that suspicously looked a lot like my fan art. I'm glad if they really used the art to make something, even though the game turned out to be quite awful.
Like the Dr Who one, I entered a songwriting competition in 1993 and submitted a cassette demo of a song I'd written, but never made a backup copy. A couple of years I suddenly heard a song almost identical to mine but with different lyrics - it was Kiss From A Rose. Seal claims to have written it in 1987, but I wonder if the competition was a front for a record company to harvest some song ideas.
The lottery is fake. Either it's rigged (only certain types of people win it, let alone those that have won it multiple times), or the money that is won isn't all of it (part of the money gets taken by the government).
Pitying African Americans will never lift the most desperate out of poverty without them being taught behavioral changes. The same for the most desperate impoverished whites. It not the system. It is how you interact with the system. The Asians proved that.
My boyfriend and I believe it's easier to wash someone else's dishes than our own. More often than not, he'll do the dishes and tidy up my kitchen and has a 2 day stack of dishes waiting for him in his flat.
Life. We can create it or remove it. We destroy species and just move on. Eventually we will all be one mixed race of humanity. But for some reason although we are all human we can't get along. We war. We humiliate. We steal an murder. But we all are the same. If people understood that basic fact that we live all the same, we could get rid of war and hunger and poverty an adjust the mean scale to equality for everyone and have utopia on this planet and become a better species. With that we could accomplish great things on our planet an enjoyable harmony with the planet an the universe itself. Also black holes aren't flat like depicted but at 3 dimensional orb intaking at all angles. Thank you.
I believe that we're causing a future water shortage by throwing away glass and plastic bottles with just a bit (or a lot) of liquid closed up in them. One day we will root around in landfills for water.
Same thing if you steal the snacks form a family member
Load More Replies... I am now off to explore the surrounding town centres to see which local businesses are a front for organised crime, secret government agencies and other life forms living here under cover
I nominate our local thai restaurant. Not once has there been a customer inside.
Load More Replies... Very interesting post. I hope to see more like this in the future. I do agree with the alien theories for sure, simply from a mathematical perspective.
I think we share earth with life forms that our 3 dimensional senses cannot conceive . Sometimes we mistake them for ghosts or aliens if we catch a glimpse. Why? Because I know that there are hundreds of life forms right now that cannot conceive of us for instance creatures who know the world only by taste or smell or touch. I often wonder as well what ants recognise, is human distinct to them from DOG or are we all strange blobs that they don't differentiate between from their tiny little perspectives.
That reincarnation is real and time does not go in a line but a circle
Similarly to the Dr Who text, I remember once drawing fan art for a game and sending it to this publishers fan art email address. Later when the game was released, there was a vehicle that suspicously looked a lot like my fan art. I'm glad if they really used the art to make something, even though the game turned out to be quite awful.
Like the Dr Who one, I entered a songwriting competition in 1993 and submitted a cassette demo of a song I'd written, but never made a backup copy. A couple of years I suddenly heard a song almost identical to mine but with different lyrics - it was Kiss From A Rose. Seal claims to have written it in 1987, but I wonder if the competition was a front for a record company to harvest some song ideas.
The lottery is fake. Either it's rigged (only certain types of people win it, let alone those that have won it multiple times), or the money that is won isn't all of it (part of the money gets taken by the government).
Pitying African Americans will never lift the most desperate out of poverty without them being taught behavioral changes. The same for the most desperate impoverished whites. It not the system. It is how you interact with the system. The Asians proved that.
My boyfriend and I believe it's easier to wash someone else's dishes than our own. More often than not, he'll do the dishes and tidy up my kitchen and has a 2 day stack of dishes waiting for him in his flat.
Life. We can create it or remove it. We destroy species and just move on. Eventually we will all be one mixed race of humanity. But for some reason although we are all human we can't get along. We war. We humiliate. We steal an murder. But we all are the same. If people understood that basic fact that we live all the same, we could get rid of war and hunger and poverty an adjust the mean scale to equality for everyone and have utopia on this planet and become a better species. With that we could accomplish great things on our planet an enjoyable harmony with the planet an the universe itself. Also black holes aren't flat like depicted but at 3 dimensional orb intaking at all angles. Thank you.
I believe that we're causing a future water shortage by throwing away glass and plastic bottles with just a bit (or a lot) of liquid closed up in them. One day we will root around in landfills for water.
