🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (8 tweets)
Reflecting this morning on how my starting conditions were a lot more hostile, cold, abrasive and distant than I choose to remember. I think it’s actually quite remarkable that I’m not much more of an asshole; all credit for that goes to the libraries & storytellers who raised me https://t.co/evTjkNiupW
I do not credit my family. I do not credit my schools, except for some individual teachers. I do not credit my meatspace community. Credit for my early friends is complicated, because we were drawn to each other and we hurt each other with the behavior we inherited https://t.co/4Ru1i0rLK8
In several ways + at several scales, I was born at the tail end of multiple threads of traumas. So my personal demons are less horrifying than my predecessors. When your grandparents’ generation lived through literal war & occupation, what are your problems? Quaint, in comparison https://t.co/tcafgiImKN
But trauma, if it isn’t transmuted, perpetuates. It passes on from parent to child, in a caustic cycle of ignorance and fear. The world babies and bullshits us when we are children; not only is Santa a lie, so is the illusion of justice and fairness and kindred institutions https://t.co/QMcTX6TssN
One of my favourite stories I saw on reddit was a parent who taught her child that the secret of Santa is that YOU get to be Santa, and you get to join the secret group of people who make the world a better place for other people. I find that very compelling and heartwarming https://t.co/DNNud2yXcc
May we all heal ourselves, and each other, with love and laughter. We’re only here for a little while. https://t.co/r3qvjTzzuT
Cloud, Shepard, Terra, Ark, and now Aloy - to me they all embody this idea that if you conduct yourself with decency and humanity, and help others, you can earn their gratitude and loyalty - and in the process collectively become something greater than yourselves