Normalising brutality….. because of war

You have heard all of the comments defending Israeli government.

It is either the nonsensical self-defense argument, even though IDF clearly targets unarmed civilians and aid workers, or the belief that all Palestinians are animals who deserved to be wiped out from the face to earth. Yadda yadda yadda, they are disturbing as they are old and predictable.

On some occasions, people defend the brutality because they believe it is a wartime necessity, something which we won’t understand if we have never endured wars ourselves.

Now, for the sake of the argument, I am going to pretend there is no genocide and what is happening between Israel and Palestine is indeed a war, an armed conflict in which both sides are on an equal plane.

The argument still doesn’t make any sense. If anything, it makes zionists sound even more disturbed.

For mentally sound minds, the violent and dehumanising effects of armed conflicts genuinely terrify us; they compel us to avoid armed conflicts as much as possible, to not escalate already-existing conflicts.

But, not to those particular zionists. They think those tendencies should be justifiable in a wartime, as if they are already normal inside their heads.

They insinuate a wartime is a perfectly acceptable living condition, a living condition equals to peacetime. They insinuate hating on wars is the same as hating people for loving pineapple pizza. For them, it is just a matter of trivial differences.

No, I am not reaching with my observation.

Understanding why people behave the way they do is one thing. Supporting them is another.

If it is truly about understanding them, you would objectively enunciate the explanations, without trying to put a positive spin or argue for the moral necessity. You wouldn’t side with those bloodthirsty warmongers. You wouldn’t take offense when they get themselves rightfully condemned.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this. As a group, zionists – especially the non-Israeli ones – often overlap with neoconservatives. Ones I have interacted with are supportive of America’s violent and warmongering foreign policies.

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Two films about trauma (and how the theme heightens my appreciation of them)

Those films are The Babadook and Good Will Hunting.

I already liked them at the first watch. I liked the former for its slow-burn and jumpscare-free horror. I liked the latter for its heart-warming drama. But, I didn’t find them special and I certainly thought the latter was way too overrated.

Recently, I tried rewatching them and I realised I missed something. Both films are about trauma.

Well, technically, The Babadook is still about grief. But. the film also focuses its long-term psychological effects and yes, grief can be traumatising. In the case of Amelia Vanek, the mother in the film, it is doubly traumatic because her husband died in a car accident while driving her to the hospital to give birth.

Good Will Hunting is about how trauma affects the titular character’s personal growth and his relationship with the other characters. His genius brain is just a mere detail to make him more captivating for the audience. If he doesn’t have it, I guarantee the story would not feel much different emotionally.

Now, how does the trauma theme improve my appreciation of the films? Well, it makes me understand the characters on a deeper level.

In The Babadook, while I already recognised her grief, I genuinely thought the film was about her daily stress of being a working single mother. But, it doesn’t explain why she seems distressed all the time – as if the stress is “permanent” – and it certainly doesn’t explain her emotional instability.

Trauma can also explain the behaviours of Samuel, the son. I don’t know if he inherits his mom’s trauma or not (as it can be hereditary). But, it is very possible he can sense something is wrong with her; he can sense there is something sinister brewing inside his mom and she can snap at any time. He is not being annoying, he is being reasonably fearful.

It also explains why the monster still lives in the end. From what I understand, trauma – the more severe one, at least – is not something you can get rid of; it is something you can only put a leash on. You cannot kill the Babadook. But, you can tame it.

And that segues to Good Will Hunting, specifically the therapist character, Sean Maguire. We don’t seem to realise that, like Will, he also suffers from trauma.

Will insulted his wife, which was enough to provoke Sean to throttle and threaten to kill him… and that happened on their very first session, by the way; anger issue is one of the most common symptoms of trauma. Sean was also abused by his father and he is a Vietnam war veteran who saw his best friend dying in front of him.

We can make an intriguing comparison between the two characters. On one hand, they are very similar to each other; not only they are “Southies” AKA from South Boston, they also have traumatic life experiences, which include being abused by their so-called parental figures.

But, at the same time, they are also different from each other. Will – to put it simply – is a mess of a person; he is aimless, he cannot be emotionally vulnerable in front of his lover and he has constant problems with the law. Meanwhile, Sean has sorted his life together; he works as a therapist and a community college professor and, most importantly, he romantically pursued a woman and married her for eighteen years until her death.

Of course, unlike Sean, Will was also an orphan, which means he had less opportunities and – without any intention to minimise Sean’s suffering – was also in a far more vulnerable state; self-improvement is admittedly harder to obtain for him.

But, at the same time, Sean’s life story feels hopeful. It shows we can overcome our pain and not letting it holding us down. We can prevail against the storm.

I still don’t think both films are among the best in the history. But, my acknowledgement of the underlying theme puts light on new perspectives. The films are much deeper than I realised.

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Queer acceptance is consequential

Anti-queer bigots argue giving queer minorities equal rights will drastically change the world we live in. From my personal experiences, when you ask them to elaborate, they usually give one of these four responses:

1. Queer equality will greenlight sexualisation and even sexual abuse of children, even though not only such things have existed prior, there are no evidences that queer people dominate the “child grooming industry”; if you can believe not all Catholic clergymen are child sexual predators, then why can’t you believe the same about queer people?
2. Queer equality will take the rights of cishet and/or religious people. Obviously, this is projection. They want queer people to have less or no rights and they assume queer people will return the favour.
3. Queer equality will allow people to marry animals and their own family members. Obviously, this is slippery slope fallacy; they believe those things will happen not because of evidences or proper reasoning, but because they feel they are entitled to force a correlation between two random things.
4. Queer equality will make cishet people queer. It doesn’t, it only allows queer people to comfortably come out of the closet. But, even if people can turn queer simply because queerness is accepted, that means cishet identity is fragile and not as strong as people think it is.
5. They refuse to elaborate. They make the claim and expect others to trust their words, confidently declaring their dogmatic asses as trustworthy.

But, they are not entirely wrong. Because no humans live in a vacuum, queer equality will bring changes to our world… but, not the changes bigots love to claim will happen.

Queer acceptance does not simply improve queer people’s quality of life, it also means we have to question everything about ourselves.

We are fearful that some or all aspects of our worldview are outdated and holding us back and therefore, have to be discarded for the betterment of everyone. Because our worldview is inseparable from who we really are, discarding it feels like we are “losing our true selves”.

Emphasise on the word “feels”. It does feel scary to let go of something we grew up with. But, I guarantee, doing so still allows us to be ourselves; the difference is our selves have become better and more open-minded.

The changes may not just be about changing our selves, they may also involve acknowledging their truest forms.

We are opposed to equality because we fear we may be queer ourselves. Queer acceptance means we are more free to explore such possibility. It means we have to confront it, sooner or later.

If we turn out to be queer, some of us fear we will suffer from intense self-hatred, unable to accept ourselves. Even if we are not queer, we still feel insecure about our sexuality and gender identity, because we don’t fully conform to the cishet stereotypes.

Many of us have to yet to realise that it is okay to defy society’s unnecessarily restrictive expectations, that there is nothing morally wrong about offending other people’s arbitrary and shallow sensibilities which serve no purposes other than coddling their own fragile feelings.

Easier said than done. But, it is possible.

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Obviously, not all changes are good. Sometimes, changes can be for the worse. But, if you believe a tradition is worth preserving simply because it is old and no one are able to provide data-driven evidences of its benefits and refute data-driven evidences of its harms, then it deserves to be discarded.

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Enabling food pickiness

First, I do acknowledge that forcing children to eat food they hate will backfire. While I didn’t grow up with food pickiness, I certainly was forced to do things I hate (and no one made attempts to make those activities appealing) and I end up hating them.

I can imagine if parents are being too harsh with foods, their picky children can get even pickier. From the anecdotes I heard, the children can end up having food-related traumas.

But, just because forcefulness can be detrimental to children’s well-being (especially if they are neurodivergent), that does not mean you should allow them to be picky. Letting them be so can be detrimental as well.

Before I talk about the detriments, let me talk about acquired tastes.

Some people I have encountered online believe acquired tastes are actually bad because, if they are actually good, they don’t need to be acquired in the first place. But, here’s the thing: every taste is acquired.

Pizza is easy for you to like not because it is objectively tasty, but because you grew up eating bread and/or anything greasy and cheesy. Yes, if you grew up with neither, you would have a harder time enjoying pizza. And yes, believe it or not, many people in the world didn’t grow up eating cheese and bread.

You may think people who love durian are either freaks or tryhards. But, in some parts of Southeast Asia (including my home country Indonesia), nobody thinks of you for loving it; you are not special, both in derogatory and non-derogatory sense. It is considered a normal food, albeit not for daily consumption, for health and financial reasons.

Offal is still widely-consumed in many parts of the world. On a global stage, you cannot call yourself the “normal” ones for not consuming organs.

And that segues to the first detriment of pickiness: it traps you in a bubble.

Obviously, you can interact with people from different cultures without eating their foods. But, if you want to understand them on a deeper level, you need to try immersing yourself in their cultures; arguably, eating their dishes is the most effective way because sustenance is one of the basic human needs.

And yes, no matter how often you travel outside your home regions, you still can be stuck in a bubble. You can visit a culturally “foreign” place and fall for the tourist traps, without having to dip your toes in the authentic local cultures. Just because your body is well-travelled, that does not mean your mind is.

Of course, if you take pride in your narrow horizons, that argument may not work for you. But, I am certain some of you care about your health. Yes, food pickiness can also ruin your health.

Consuming a little variety of dishes means you consume a little variety of ingredients, which means you have very limited sources of nutrients. Even if those limited ingredients give you enough nutrients, your health is screwed when some or all of them suddenly become unavailable for whatever reasons.

If you consume highly-varied plant-based ingredients, including legumes and whole grains, and adequate amount of fermented foods, you will also foster the growth of good bacteria in your gut.

Not only they can maintain good bowel health, they can also boost good cholesterol level, control blood sugar and maintain the health of our neutral system.

Introducing certain ingredients to children at a very young age can also reduce the possibility of food allergies developing later in life. As an Indonesian, I was surprised to hear about peanut allergy; never mind the deadliness, I didn’t know peanut could be an allergen.

Unless you don’t care about health, you would be gravely concerned by the pickiness which afflict you and/or your loved ones.

Oh, and if your children have ADHD, you can find online sources which give you tips on overcoming their pickiness. Involve them in the food preparation (which gives them a sense of pride in their food) and make meal times fun and distraction-free.

While they are against forceful parenting, they also warn parents to not succumb to their children’s demands. Have plain water as the only drink in meal times and do not give them sugary treats as rewards for eating veggies, as they will always see them as revolting foods.

I also googled about whether parents should sneak veggies in their children’s foods; some sources say we should not overuse the trick, others say we shouldn’t do it at all. Not only children won’t learn how to appreciate the taste of veggies, they will also end up distrusting the foods you make. Again, it can backfire.

What’s my point here?

We shouldn’t be too harsh towards picky people as they are shaped by their health conditions and/or upbringing, none of which they ask for.

But, it is also obvious some people defend pickiness not because they care about children’s well-being, but because they want to justify their own pickiness.

If that’s not the case, why would they wear their narrow tastebuds as a badge of honour, as shown by their “acquired tastes” argument?

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/gut-microbiome-and-health

https://www(.)additudemag.com/picky-eaters-adhd-food-children/

Got a Picky Eater on Your Hands? Here’s How to Cope

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/tips-tools/ask-the-pediatrician/Pages/Should-I-sneak-fruits-veggies-into-my-preschooler-food.aspx

https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/please-stop-trying-to-sneak-vegetables-into-your-kids-food-article

https://www.learntolovefood.com/learn-to-love-food-1/is-sneaking-veggies-a-good-idea

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Non-fat people can also be greedy motherf***ers

Before Smosh, I was only occasionally exposed to Reddit stories. Now, thanks to the videos, I am more familiar with them.

Many of the stories are undoubtedly infuriating. But, there is one which hits different: this is the first one which I find….. triggering.

In this story, an obese man got called a pig because he finished the last remaining sandwiches at a party and the reddit comment section thought he was the asshole. If you pay attention to the details, calling him the asshole is a bit too much.

First thing first, it was at a party and the foods were meant to be eaten. Unless you are one of those weirdos who think foods should be purely decorative.

Second, he said he waited for an hour before he ate the last remaining sandwiches, ensuring no one else wanted them. Despite having large appetite, he still had some self-control and tact.

Third, he brought chicken wings and, like the feral hairless apes they were, they gobbled every single one, leaving none for him. Not to mention they just watched, waited for him finishing the food before unleashing hell upon him.

While I may not be obese, I am still an overweight person with large appetite and I find the story too painfully relatable.

I am fatter than most people around me and yet, I have better self-control than many of them. My mom’s the worst.

Every time we eat at a restaurant, she almost always over-order the foods. When she doesn’t take heed of my complain, we – especially me – often end up feeling extremely nauseous at the end because I hate wasting foods and she has what we Indonesians call the “hungry eyes”: a condition in which we want certain things simply because we love their sights and not because we need them…. and that includes foods; yes, she rarely finish the food she over-orders.

Not only she lets her eyes conquering her guts, she also lets her tongue to do the same. It doesn’t matter how heavy and greasy a meal is, it would not satisfy her if it tastes like snacks. So, after a nauseating dinner of crispy fried wonton with cheesey potato filling (a recipe of her friend) which she insisted to be served with rice, she still wanted a “proper meal”; I had to buy fried chickens and fries from the McDonald’s for her.

And I haven’t talked about my high school friends. We were celebrating something at a restaurant (I forgot what) and we opted for buffet dinner. When it was time to eat, many of them acted like they hadn’t eat in days; they immediately took two plates and each was filled with a mountainous pile. And yes, they didn’t finish their foods.

While I admittedly eat a lot of foods and I am definitely guilty of regular emotional eating, I always finish my foods; food wise, I NEVER bite off more than I can chew. I never over-buy foods in supermarkets, I never over-order in restaurants and I certainly never pile foods in buffets. I certainly know my stomach’s limit.

Of course, unsurprisingly my mom thinks I am the one who lacks restraint. She also acts surprises every time I say I am full, as if greasy foods and snacks should never fill me up. Not to mention the fat-shaming I endured growing up, along with the other emotional abuses she committed.

And those high school friends? They had the gall to mock me for taking a second helping. While they were not abusive like she is, their hypocrisy is just as frustrating.

Nowadays, I am much braver in calling her out (which really violates her conservative Indonesian boomer sensibility). But, that trauma still lingers to this day, as shown by how triggered I am by the reddit story.

Obviously, the redditor and I do need to fix our eating habits. I acknowledge that people like us are endangering our own health and personally, I despise how the body positivity movement is hijacked by people who whitewash fatness; you can humanise fat people without pretending they are healthy.

But, at the same time, we must be honest with ourselves: non-fat people can also have bad eating habits and, if you have basic knowledge in health, there are other unhealthy habits that won’t make you fat. Fat-shamers never care about other people’s well-beings, they are just abusive cunts who hide behind so-called “good intentions” which gullible fucks fall for.

Despite his own shortcoming, he is obviously not the asshole. But, unfortunately, many on reddit think he is.

I have different assumptions of why that is.

Maybe they are just unfortunately myopic and thoughtlessly negligent with the details luridly displayed in front of them. As regrettable as it is, I can acknowledge they mean no harm with their opinions and their condition can be cured by teaching them basic reading comprehensions and empathy.

Maybe they are those self-hating fat and former fat people. They have yet to accept that they deserve criticisms and the opportunity of self-improvements without the abuses.

Or maybe they are those abusers. They read how the narrator is obese and they immediately go predatory-mode, seeing him as someone to prey upon for their own sadistic amusement.

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As I said before, I found this story from one of Smosh’s reddit videos, hosted by Shayne Topp. Since I have been watching Smosh videos regularly, I – along with many – have been charmed by him.

Yes, he is physically attractive and funny. But, when he is not “performing”, he is also very chill and doesn’t take himself too seriously; judging from what his colleagues say about him (assuming they are telling the truth), he seems to be very likeable off-camera, so likeable they want to eat their lunches with him.

The reddit videos make him even more lovable for me. Even though I may not always agree with his assessments, he is the perfect host for such show: he is able to read between the lines, he is able to be nuanced without falling for false neutrality and he is not dismissive of other people’s life experiences.

With that reddit story, while he understands why people might get upset with the redditor’s behaviours, he also thinks the backlash is disproportionately harsh. He believes we can criticise the redditor without spewing venom.

And my crush for him gets him even stronger.

Yes, I know I have parasocial relationship with him. He doesn’t know I exist and if we ever meet, there is still very low chance we will ever be friends.

And yes, I also realise those traits of his may just be parts of his manufactured public persona. I shouldn’t be surprised or upset if they are eventually exposed as an act.

I have had parasocial relationships before. But, this is the first time I experience a very strong one in a long time. While I am more mentally impervious than most people I know, it still feels empowering when you grew up feeling lonely with your life experiences and a public figure validates them.

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Extroverts who believe they care about your well-being

I saw this at two different media news outlets: readers asking advice columnists about how to make their introverted children “extroverted”. One is on Slate, an American news outlet, and one is on Guardian, a British one. This also reminds me of a reddit post in which a man claims he wants to help his coworker overcoming her “shyness”.

Those people believe they have the other people’s best interests; they are being pushy because they don’t want their children and coworker to get trapped in their shells and missing out on life.

But, I haven’t told you some “interesting” details.

In the same letters, the parents also acknowledge their children are very active in group activities. In the same post, the redditor also acknowledges her coworker interacts with others in the office*.

And I have similar personal anecdotes.

Admittedly, I am not as socially active as those kids and coworker. I also have moments of tactlessness and awkwardness. But, I am still able to interact with my fellow human beings.

I have interacted with my relatives, my mom’s friends and acquaintances, my classmates, my teachers, the staff at the veterinarian’s clinic and even complete strangers with ease. In fact, surprising for a borderline wallflower with emotional issues like me, senior high school is the most social period of my life. To say introverts are hermits is an exaggeration.

But, that doesn’t stop people from pressuring me to socialise more.

Now, for extroverts out there:

Before you help those loners, you should ask this first: do any of them need actual help?

If you have personally witnessed them thriving in social settings and yet, you still believe they are anti-social simply because they enjoy solitude, you are making a problem out of nothing.

Despite seeing evidences to the contrary, you believe solitude is a deranged state of being which deprive us of our ability and desire to bond with each other. You believe love and appreciation of solitude is an anti-social behaviour, a sign of mental illness. You refuse to believe that not only solitude is harmless, it can also be beneficial.

If a harmless and possibly beneficial state of being triggers you to no end, it is obvious you are the one with problems, not the loners you keep harassing.

Maybe you suffer from some sort of mental disorder. Or maybe, you just need to learn to accept fucking trivial differences and accept life is not that black-and-white.

Just like introverts need to socialise, extroverts also need to appreciate solitude; how can you be contemplative when you can not be alone with your own thoughts?

Oh, and as the COVID pandemic has shown, one’s inability to be alone can be deadly to others. Don’t pretend those party animals didn’t help spreading the virus.

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*Instead of one about an extrovert harassing an introvert, it can be argued the reddit story is more of a case of an older man harassing a younger woman. Personally, I believe it is both.

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The problem with math and sports

Quite a while ago, I wrote a blogpost about how people’s hatred and fear of math was caused by the poor teaching; I even wrote an Indonesian version of it. While I didn’t write any about sports education, my sentiment was more or less the same.

But, recently, I realised I didn’t get the full story.

I remember that even when my sports and math teachers were pleasant, I still hated their classes. When I hear anecdotes about other people (from different countries, mind you) telling their bad experiences in those subjects, very rarely they mention abusive teachers.

While I still stand by my previous assertion, it is clear I was missing something. It took me some time to realise one glaring problem: the wider society.

Societies perceive math with high regards, albeit implicitly. It is believed that if you are good in natural sciences and engineering, disciplines which definitely incorporate math to some degree, you are immediately considered intelligent, regardless of the reality.

Sports are also culturally significant in many societies. They are more than just about health (if it was ever a concern in the first place), they are also about collective, borderline-religious identities and – most frustratingly – upholding arbitrary and ever-changing gender roles.

And those put pressures on us.

If you lack any penchant for STEM, let alone not showcasing talents for them, you are considered intellectually inferior cretins with no bright future; God forbids if you choose to major in “useless” and “soft” disciplines like social sciences and humanities, especially humanities.

If you lack any interests in sports, you will be perceived as anti-social (which is ironic considering the well-known behaviours of sports fans all over the world) and uncaring about your health (ignoring that many people do sports for the cool factor, for fun or to get laid and many of them still smoke and have poor eating habits). If you are male, that trait will make others perceive you as unmanly and effeminate.

Those pressures are already taunting enough. In this case, they seep in to the classrooms, adding even more stress to the already-stressful environments.

Some of you may argue the injury is “self-inflicted” and we let ourselves affected by other people. And I call that victim-blaming.

The thing about social pressures is they are not optional; they are forcibly imposed upon us and if we fail to fulfill them, we will be forcibly given unsavoury labels. Not giving a damn is harder than it sounds, especially when you are an impressionable teenager or you grew up with the belief that absolute conformity is a virtue.

Oh and, considering you actively participate in the shaming, you genuinely sound like a gaslighting abuser.

Some of you may also argue we are too whiny, considering every school class can also be traumatic and, in the end, we get the benefits of math and sports, anyway.

Benefits, what benefits?

Okay, math classes taught us basic calculating skills. But, what else? They fail to teach all of us rational thinking and they certainly fail to give all of us an entirely new perspective on life.

In my personal case, social science and humanities are the ones who gave me both; I started appreciating the complex and multifaceted nature of life – both in its tangible and intangible forms – after studying the disciplines in greater details.

Sports classes fail to make students physically fit and socially cooperative, not even in the short term. They fail to make us appreciate physical health and social interactions.

Let’s be honest here: how often do you hear about anyone traumatised by other school subjects, especially ones like arts and humanities?

Unless they involve abusive teachers and classmates or there are expectations to succeed in said disciplines, I am confident your answer is “rarely”. If you ask people about their least favorite subjects, I am confident math and sports would be among the top answers everywhere.

Admittedly, I cannot find any data which affirm my beliefs; I am entirely reliant on my personal observations. If you can provide multiple peer-reviewed studies which results can be replicated in various culturally distinct countries, I would change my view.

My point is that don’t put math and sports on the highest pedestals. Being high and mighty about them won’t do any good; it only makes people hate those school subjects even more.

And the more they hate those subjects, the less they will get the benefits.

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Defending bullies because you are fucktarded

No, not all bullies suffer. Not all of them are victims of bullying and not all of them are from abusive homes. Who do you think you are kidding?

A bully is someone whose idea of empowerment is punching others down; it is about power imbalance. Basically, growing up as a spoiled and entitled brat who is used to things done your way can also turn you into one. No traumas needed.

But, even if I believe such idiotic assertion, it still does not make any sense.

They suffer. Okay, so fucking what? How does that justify anything? Other people also suffer, some even have it way worse than the bullies do. The difference is they refuse inflict the pain they feel upon others… unlike the bullies, who won’t be at peace until they have inflicted it upon every single soul.

The thing is you can see those bullies as both the villains and the victims at the same time. But, for some reasons, you refuse: you want the world to feel sorry for them, you don’t want the world to condemn them.

And I have assumptions about why you do that.

You might be a complicit bystander or even a bully yourself. But, instead of relieving yourself of the guilt by admitting it and asking for forgiveness, you choose to pretend what you did was never bad in the first place.

You might think the victims are the real villains for provoking the bullying. You know, the kind of person who thinks being trivially different means you are asking to be bullied.

No, you cannot blame me for having those assumptions.

You are extremely angered by the backlashes against the bullies… while you are barely so by the bullying, if at all. It is more than enough to show you are on the bullies’ side and have always been.

Or you might be one of the weirdos who believe in Bothsideism AKA the belief that every single party involved in a conflict is equally right and/or equally wrong. You believe bullies and their victims are equally villainous and it infuriates you that many do not share your brain-dead neutrality.

If that’s the case, you are probably one of those “centrists” who believe Neo-Nazis and the “woke mob” are equally villainous.

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What I regret and don’t regret

I regret I didn’t exercise enough. If I did, I would probably become a more physically attractive person and I would feel less guilty about eating my favourite foods. My regret gets worse when I remember I can enjoy swimming and badminton, assuming I am not being forced to do them.

I regret I didn’t take martial arts lessons. As someone with anger issues, I would be much better in handling them.

I regret I didn’t listen to my mom about the merits of Catholic schools. Yes, I have talked shit about the Catholic church many times. But, I also acknowledge that Catholic schools often provide among the best education for children and teenagers (in Indonesia, Catholic institutions don’t have the same negative reputations as they do in the west).

I regret I was a lazy student, resulting in me failing multiple classes in university, wasting lots of my mom’s money. I regret I didn’t work hard enough for a major which I chose myself.

I regret becoming an internet addict. I used to love reading books. Thanks to my addiction, it would be a miracle if I finish one per year nowadays. The more books I read, the more imaginative and perceptive I would be.

I regret I didn’t pursue activities which interest me because, again, I was lazy. Even if I wasn’t talented or they didn’t end up as my careers, I would be benefitted by having more life experiences and knowledge. Not to mention the improved self-confidence.

I regret not pursuing blogging earlier. Even as a teenager, I already found joy in writing. But, I didn’t try harder to find opportunities that force me to write (I always feel guilty if I churn out less than four blogposts a month).

I regret not expanding my CV either with manual labour works or desk jobs, as it renders me a deadbeat and financially-dependent adult.

I regret that even in my early 20’s, I didn’t try my best to be a socially tactful person. I wish I tried my best to not make people around unnecessarily uncomfortable.

But, they are like coins. While there are sides which I do regret, there are also sides which I don’t.

I don’t regret not becoming a straight A student. Unless I come from a working-class background who needs scholarships, there are no reasons for me to be one. While it does make me appear intelligent and knowledgeable, it doesn’t necessarily make me actually intelligent and knowledgeable.

I don’t regret not taking as many activities as possible. Why should I take ones that didn’t interest me (and still don’t)? Yes, leaving my comfort zone is good for you. But, I still need genuine interest; without it, those activities would make miserable and probably even more temperamental.

I don’t regret not doing activities which were considered “cool” or “manly”. I see no benefits about being seen as “cool” and affirming to arbitrary and ever-changing gender roles.

While I do regret my tactlessness, I don’t regret my low agreeableness. I am proud that I don’t dedicate my life towards getting people’s approval for every single thing. As long as my actions are not negatively consequential, there is nothing wrong about “breaking the rules”. And I certainly don’t regret yelling, insulting and beating people who want to trample on me, figuratively and literally; it is not tactlessness, it is self-defense.

I don’t regret being a homebody introvert. I know I can be tactful without interacting just for the sake of it; if anything, the early days of pandemic show extroverts can also be the world’s biggest assholes.

While I do regret the addiction, I certainly don’t regret consuming internet. It boasts a variety of content which “traditional” media severely lacks; it has a space for niche aesthetics, niche topics and, most importantly, dissenting voices.

I don’t regret not listening to my mom urging me to join the military and study medicine or engineering. I know for certain I would miserable if I do either one, let alone both. The only one who would get benefitted is my mom; she would feel the professional prestige of military and engineering/medicine without doing the hard work.

Realising that her son will never be the “ideal man”, she starts urging me to become a chef because I love to eat. While I do love eating, that still makes her advice stupid.

I love cooking because I love eating the food I make. If you are the chef, you are not supposed to eat your food, you are supposed to sell them. Don’t forget that the chef world is infamous for toxic workplace atmosphere. Hence, why I don’t regret not becoming a chef as well. Even if I do end up taking cooking classes, it is probably because I don’t have any other career options.

I don’t regret being a virgin at thirty. While I can be sexually frustrated on some occasions, it gives a lot of time to understand my sexual desires and to rethink my own sexual ethics, as I didn’t grow up with proper sex education.

I also don’t regret being single all of my life. Admittedly, I feel like I am missing out for not experiencing puppy love as a teenager; I imagine it is one of the best feelings for a teenager to experience. But, I also imagine my love life would be volatile.

Teenagers are already emotionally rocky due to the hormonal changes. Now, imagine if those teenagers already had emotional issues prior puberty; I was one of them. Unfortunately, I could imagine myself adding toxicity to the relationships.

I am also a bisexual, who is still closeted offline, living in an increasingly anti-LGBT country. So, even if I don’t have any emotional issues, I would be probably be fearful about romantically pursuing other boys; if I did pursue them, my self-loathing would probably make me toxic.

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Growing up, people kept reminding me I would regret every single life choices I made.

They were right. As stated before, some of my life choices are detrimental to myself and others. I gave other people unnecessary discomfort and I fail to be a well-rounded person.

But, they were also wrong. The rest of my life choices clearly never harm anyone; the only things they “violate” are social expectations. In fact, some of them are proven to be beneficial, both for me and the people around me.

You have rethink about the ones you have made. Find out whether they shackle you from becoming a better person or simply make you disobey arbitrary social expectations. Then, you can start regretting.

Unless, of course, you believe it is your duty to be an absolute conformist. If that’s your stance, fine by me. You have the freedom to be a doormat.

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When meat and alcohol are your entire personalities

If you are a fervent Reddit user or you are a currently devoted Smosh viewer, you would have heard a story of a woman who disrespected her daughter’s wish of a vegan and sober wedding by creating an alternative party, where meat and alcohol are served; she argued the extended family felt the meat and alcohol-free wedding would not just be boring, it also wouldn’t be a “true representation of who they are”.

The majority of redditors agreed she was an asshole. As someone who found this story from a Smosh video, I also noticed the majority of viewers shared the same sentiment. The majority.

Of course, there are the tiny minority that sticks out like an infected, pus-ridden thumb which I stumbled upon.

They made arguments that are definitely and certainly not predictable: they need alcohol to have fun and calm their nerves and they feel not having their meat craving catered to is discriminatory.

Yeah, bunch of bullshits.

If you need alcohol to have fun, you are boring. I mean, if you need to be stimulated by a literal addictive substance in order to be fun, you admit that you inherently have nothing interesting to offer.

And how can you be certain you have more fun when you barely have any recollections of it?

While I have never met drunkards, I have heard anecdotes about them: drunkards are only charming and funny to other drunkards; for the sober ones, they are just unappealing or even downright repulsive.

If you need alcohol to calm your nerves, you have an issue. You suffer from some kind of emotional disorder… and yet, instead of asking for a professional help, you are self-medicating; don’t act like your doctor prescribes you alcohol.

And here’s the thing about us, meat eaters: Nobody forces us to eat meat at every single goddamn meal.

We don’t have any medical, religious and moral reasons to do so. If we skip meat for one or a few meals, we wouldn’t put our health in danger and break any of our principles. We would be just fine, both figuratively and literally.

We eat meat not because of any obligations, we eat meat because we feel entitled to.

If you think forcing vegans to serve non-vegan foods is morally justified, then how do you feel about forcing practicing Muslims and Jews to serve pork or forcing Hindus to serve beef?

If you think that is also morally justified, then you are a hopeless cunt. But, if you think it isn’t, then why?

Why do you think one is okay while the other isn’t? Why do you think religious dietary restrictions are something to be respected while non-religious ones aren’t? What’s with the selectiveness?

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Yeah, I know. The vegan and abstinent crowds have their share of combative and holier-than-thou pricks. But, it gets to the point where not only we stereotype every single vegan and sober person as such, we get offended by their mere existence….

… And we end up embracing alcohol and meat as our entire personalities, embracing combativeness and self-righteousness which we accuse vegans and sober people of.

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