Which is acceptable. I didn’t mean to pressure you.
But I’m also going to try again to explain myself. Because I feel like I did a poor job.
And other people do their shit because of what they have experienced. So far it has not helped me control it better to know that.
I think I mislabeled my solution when I said, “look for the hurt.” Because upon reflection, it wasn’t finding the “hurt” that helped me.
It was finding the target. It helped when I convinced myself that the real target of the cruelty was not the person who ended up receiving it.
My brother in the above example? I was able to let go of his barbs when I realized his barbs were aimed at himself. He didn’t even really reflect on his own statements enough to know whether “outcast among outcasts” applied to me. He was insulting himself, and wound up missing himself and hitting me.
My mother in the above example – who currently embraces a bunch of people telling her, “some people are beyond saving,” – doesn’t actually understand that the resulting philosophy defends and maintains a system of oppression over minorities and poor people, (and over several categories to which she herself belongs.) And she wouldn’t be happy if she realized that. Because the real, true target of her desire to give up on people is the people who gave up on her. She’s just missing them and hitting the wrong people.
That commenter that somehow got my blood boiling? His target was an FBI or NSA agent, or any number of his “normie” friends who started to distance themselves from him after he entered the alt-right. He’s lonely. He’s isolated. And he’s lashing out against everyone trying to control and punish him by inflicting this loneliness upon him. And he ended up missing them and hitting me.
In all cases, these people were throwing darts after being spun around a few times, blindfolded. In all cases, they had a target that it might have been okay – or at least understandable – for them to hit. And realizing that they were missing their true target is what gives me peace.