🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (14 tweets)
thread on feeling like this isn't my world https://t.co/xJEs3sTeWd
i find it hard to care about "us" (the humans) i also find it hard to feel like "we're all in this together" this isn't because i think people suck and are all out to get each other it;s got more to do with "us" not feeling very real
growing up, other people didn't have what i wanted though i got along with other kids, there were clear cultural divides. I was the one who didn't watch tv or play video games or listen to music, which meant a large amount of conversations people wanted to have did me nothing
we'd play sometimes / often, but there was always a sense that most everyone was wanted different stuff from me i wanted to play i wanted to read my books (way more interesting than most peers and adults) i wanted super powers i wanted to jump on stuff
also, as a kid, i had very limited capacity to act on the world. so I'd spend lots of time reading and day dreaming about fantasy worlds this looked like getting really into zombie-apocalypse stuff in middle school. endless fun scenarios to simulate in my head!
fast forward: my current political feels are "most people use it for sports, i don't want to have those convos, and actually making gearsy models of the world looks like it'll take a lot of work and I dont really have a vision that compells me to put in that effort"
for this whole thing to make sense, there needs to be an explanation for why i was less engaged in social reality (claiming most people care about "us/politics" cuz that's what the tribe do) explored in this side thread https://t.co/b7la1icLMm
my first personality developed out of playing up being wild and weird (almost class clown, but feels like a dif trope) i didn't "fit in", like the things other people did, nor matched their energy levels, so I leaned into it (this was like elementary school, no idea the impetus)
in general, other people didn't stop me that much from pursing things i liked (except for having to go to school) and other people didn't seem to have that much exciting to offer so other people often just became scenery
I've since found a lot more levers to act on the world I've since found lots more interest in other people and the world ....but just drifiting off into myself still ain't that bad https://t.co/sB6wG9K4jA
for the past 4 years I've been flirting with lots of different "life missions", mostly because I'd heard those are what the cool kids have i chilled out on that when I tlp and samzdat knocked me into noticing how i was coping out by subing in other people's values
a HUGE motif for me this past year+ has been learning to feel, assert, and affirm my own values this feels v different from picking a "life mission", though it does feel like a lead in it looks like becoming capable of saying "YES. I want ABC. NO, i don't care about XYZ"
it's very bottom up i think it's a bad move to start exploring your values top down until you've got a very solid core it's easy for me to realize that James Acaster continuing to be funny matters it's nigh impossible for me to abstractly justify that ThInGs In GeNeRaL matter