I once had a friend who had some really horrible setbacks. Growing up he was nice, a bit cocky but friendly. As we aged he changed. He began to smell. His teeth looked green as he went through difficult times. He once had a job in his early 30's at a high scale restaurant. An older gentleman who had my friend clear his plate off the table took a look at him and said "No! I don't want this man near me.There's something no right about him. My friend looked at him with an evil smile of green teeth and said. " I know. I am the devil you old bas#4ard.

I believe their is the capacity for evil in all of us. But there is also the capacity for love and humbleness. How you live your life is probably the way you will spend eternity if their is a life after death. Needless to say I haven't spoken with my child hood friend in over ten years. I find it sad he turned out that way but had people been nicer I don't believe it would have happened to him. Food for thought I guess. Thanks for the comment.

It could have been in the way he was brought up by his parents. If you stand out as being different in some way, it can result from awful treatment at school because kids can be extremely mean. This is extremely damaging. I know from first hand experience and it took years to get over.

Today I am on disability because of it. However, I was fortunate to find the right kind of people to be with and this made a big difference for me. I too could have been the person you described, but I was spared both, in circumstances, and having learnt how to survive. Very fortunate for me, instead of going off like that, I came upon the support I needed. Not so with my brothers, one of which has died from lifestyle. Very sadly, in spite of the kind person he was, he too let his hygiene slip like you described, with the green teeth and not bathing, and then alcohol - died at age 45 from all this. It started with my father's abuse toward him. He came to a point where he just didn't care anymore and let himself die.

I got through and past it all. Unlike any of my other brothers and sisters, I grew to understand it for what it was and not let it control me, at least not during the time in my life when I am now aging. I am not perfect either (as you know) but I try to do what's right in the sight of the Lord. I won't go further with this because it's forbidden here. I will say it's the thing that has delivered me.

Somewhere along the line your old friend lost his dignity, is insecure and lost, and worst of all, has given up. Some people go on to committing serious crimes like mass murdering and sex crimes, and things like this. It is so sad because much of this starts in childhood, during formative years and is learnt behavour. Severe traumatic events can warp minds as well. I consider myself very fortunate because I was given the new lease on life that many don't get. I don't take this very lightly, nor think I'm better than anybody else (because I'm not) nor do I take it for granite. I am very thankful, and today, live a fairly healthy lifestyle.

I have learnt some pretty serious lessons even here at Wealthy Affiliate over the years. Sadly what happens to some people is that they get hung up in an addiction, and this is when they stop growing. Very few do come out of it but not all.

Very true. I have no doubts it was from the upbringing with his dad being an alcoholic. I suffered the same abuse and my dad jumped off a 200 foot bridge and killed himself when I was 17. I ended up homeless when the step monster kicked me out two weeks after his funeral. I ended up homeless again after the Marines but bounced back and went through electrical school. Then at 40 lost it all after a serious bout of meningitis and near death. Now, I have rebuilt what I care about in life and it really isn't much more than my family. I no longer chase the dream job and have had the houses and nice cars from making good money as an electrician. Now, I focus on little things that don't weigh me down. I don't spend money I don't have, live simply and enjoy watching my son grow up even though he is 15 and doesn't want to spend much time with me like he did as a young boy. Yes, the kids are mean but I talk to him best I can, don't berate him and tell him those kids are just jealous. I have enough wisdom and life experience to know at 54 that kids need support especially from the parents even if they don't want it. I'm sorry you went through that. Some of us have had lives we wouldn't wish upon our worst enemy but belief in something higher does help.

This is all very true. Our family were children of alcoholics. My father used to severely beat me and did unspeakable things to one of my sisters when she was very young, having violated her over a two year period until my mother discovered it and then a divorce. My father died a lonely despicable and regretful man at age 66. His father was also a very hard man but I don't know the details other than that. Yeah, I was the black sheep and runt of the family.

I used to have a lot of stuff, not like you did, but too much stuff. Trying to build a business here made me realize it had to go. I now have a fraction of what I used to have and I like it that way. It simply makes for a much more structured, organized life and is reflected in business and the mind. I'm still unloading stuff but I'm almost completed with the task. I have no nostalgia, piles of DVDs, CDs, consumer electronics, VHS tapes, cassette tapes, excessive clothing and shoes, useless documents, trinkets knack-nicks, or any other excess useless junk. It pays off! Easier to clean the home, much less stuff to look after and take care of and my environment is much cleaner, brighter and open. I am also poring through unfinished projects - all the dropping off of weights that have been pulling me down.

I choose minimalism as a way of life, at least in my own stead. I have what I need and only what I need. I grew up in squalid conditions, and when I left there and saw others living in stable, well-kept homes, it changed my life experiencing that. What spared me was that I began running away from home as a teenager, one day never to return.

Very interesting. I did not know all that but I am not surprised. The Dark Ages and Middle Ages had so many terrors.

It is a shame most people now don't care about history and certainly don't know anything about it. It seems like such a waste to me. There is SO much to learn from our past and people just wander around with their nose plastered to YouTube on their phones and don't have a clue about that past or other parts of the world or anything!

I'm living the same now myself. Moved out of California and to NC where its slow.

Yes, the medieval era. I could go on and on and on and on with this. It is one of the most misunderstood times of any other. There are things that occurred much later that most people think occurred during that time.

Very few people know where Dracula came from, but in the high middle ages, the terror and sheer sickness that went on would make any Dracula movie, including Nosferatu from 1922, content fit for children.

Human life was considered next to worthless and I just don't have the right words for the awful things I've read about life in those days.

Even though this was the Devil's playground (is it really any different today?) people were not stupid. In fact, were sharper than most people are today with their ability to memorize entire books. Not many can do that today nor match the aptitude people had then.

Life was hard, and the oppression was terrible, but it was possible, and even somewhat easy to escape the mayhem. People lived very simple but wholesome if they were fortunate enough to figure their way out.

People were not filthy slobs any more or less than we have today. Much of this is myth. When beholding human skulls from those times, bad teeth was rare, and did not begin showing up on the scene until Tudor times when sugar cane dropped in price and it became available to the middle classes.

However one had to watch out for the authority. We know that story. It was the governance where the true ignorance resided, and is where the lion's share of the horror derived from that we have today as things like Halloween.

Yes, by comparison the origins of a holiday like Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico are much more palatable. That is actually a celebration for honoring your ancestors and deceased family members. It is not meant to scare anyone or hurt anyone or anything. I am not Mexican but I always thought the comparison between the holidays was interesting.

We have a day something like that - Veteran's Day, which is more of a memorial rather than a holiday, but Halloween has references to such atrocities as the Inquisition, during which a number of things we see in the holiday, such as the bobbing for apples, come from.

Some of it, like witch-hunting actually occurred AFTER the middle ages, though some of it did occur during, though not anywhere to the extent that it did, even as late as nearly into the 1700s.

The Black Death that occurred during the mid 1300s, that which occurred in England, mostly in London much later, after the Middle Ages and horror stories in places like the infamous Bethlehem Royal Hospital (better known as Bedlam) and other such institutions, all in some way or another, contribute to the holiday in watered-down versions, going from X- and R-rated stuff to G-rated.

Some stories, such as Frankenstein, came from the 19th century, during a time when such fantasies were entertained in an age when modern science was in its early stages of development. The lion's share of what we have in the holiday comes from topics not allowed to be discussed here, such as the Inquisition in detail and its origin, but are heavily tied in with such topics.

I found something interesting when I thought about nursery rhymes. It has been said that such like "Ring Around the Rosie" has reference to the Great Plague, but is very likely this (and other such pieces of literature have reference to ring-playing that took place in the United States and Western Europe (their own verson) again - tying in with religion for which I can go no further here.

This is a colossal example of how things, sometimes meaningless lyrics get created and later people come along and try to make sense out of them and paint pictures about them that become considered fact later. Until I found a Snopes article on the above, I believed the same, but that nursery rhyme actually has an interesting history. Many of our most beloved holidays are unfortunately founded on such dubious sources.

Yes, the nursery rhymes like Ring around the Rosie are very grim if you know what they are really about! I have always found that interesting.

I wonder how we ever survived when people had a million reasons for killing each other in the past!

Lol. I know weird.

Definitely lol. Have a great Halloween. Xx