Why would you hurt me like this?
Why would you hurt me like this?
What an unworthy life. What a depressing existence.
I’m fairly positive that my drug use in early adulthood damaged my intelligence somewhat. I am also certain that it broadened my perspective and improved my ability to understand others. Good trade imo.
I’ve had a similar journey, and am consistently surprised at how common this path seems to be.
It does seem depressingly common for formerly disadvantaged people to abandon empathy once they gain a modicum of power. See: the divide and conquer strategy that has been effectively wielded against the working class for all of history.
As a GNC person myself, the worst bigotry I have experienced personally has come from cis gay people. What was said to you was not acceptable. Your identity is not contingent upon the side that you take in an argument. This woman knowingly chose violence, and that stain is on her. It means little, but this internet stranger sees you. We have to care for one another, especially when we disagree.
Human cognition/consciousness is not special. There have likely been many now-extinct intelligent species whose evolutionary niche did not encourage the indefinite expansion and subsequent habitat destruction that we are currently experiencing. Moreover, other intelligent species will likely evolve after we are extinct. There is also no reason to believe that consciousness is unique to biological creatures, although mechanical sapience will most likely look very different from ours.
I stopped drinking about six years ago. My university had a very “party” atmosphere, and I faced a lot of social pressure to drink during most outings. Being an oddball nerd, I drank for the first time alone in a basement so that I could understand how it felt before doing so in front of others. After some vaguely pleasant spinning about the room I ended up vomiting and had a rough hangover the next day. And that pretty much summed up my relationship with alcohol for the following decade. Have a mildly good to mediocre time, followed by regret. Even with just a small amount. Eventually I had a moment of clarity in my late twenties where I realized “this is not for me” and just stopped. I wish I had possessed the self awareness and bravery in my late teens to take the stand then.
I had exactly the same experience.