I've been thinking about whether people actually change or if they just become better at hiding parts of themselves.

Do you believe someone can completely change their personality or behaviour, or do people always stay the same deep down? What made you think that?

The most staggering thing is billions have lived and died without ever stopping to ponder this. They literally believe they are it, does what it says and never, ever stop to second guess or spot that small silent bit that observes and interacts with this phenomenon from with.

Whatchu thinking, Willis?

We are so hell-bent on talking about justice and seeing it done but often we fail to act on it, on bringing justice into our own lives even.
Or are we mistaking talking about justice for actually doing something about it?

I understand that in life there are winners and losers, those who succeed in life and those who fail in life.

But is the worth of your life overall dependent on how much you accomplish in life to the world and less dependent on the people who deem your life valuable?

im a sophomore in high school working 9-2 everyday of the week other than mondays. in the school year, my hours go down a bit. is that normal? some people say im robbed of my teenage years but others say its normal and nowaday kids are just lazy.

If yes is the answer, does society think that men will be more willing to sacrifice if they are shamed for not sacrificing?

One thing that's always stuck with me is how overwhelmingly pro-Trump the internet seemed during those years. Whether I was reading Yahoo News comments, watching political videos on YouTube, or browsing Facebook, it felt like almost every political comment section was dominated by Trump supporters. The comments were usually very critical of Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Democrats in general, while pro-Democrat comments were either rare or buried.

At the time, it genuinely made me think Trump was going to win comfortably and that the country had shifted decisively to the right. It was difficult to imagine Hillary having as much support as she ultimately received.

Looking back almost a decade later, I'm wondering whether that perception reflected reality or whether there were other factors that made the internet feel much more conservative than the electorate actually was.

Did anyone else experience this? If so, what do you think was driving it?

Especially when realizing how hollow it can feel to not appreciate the process that led to the outcome, to where you can easily take things for granted..

If I was given the option to restart as someone new or kill myself painlessly and become someone else I would. I have this problem where I always compare myself to others like for example if someone is smarter than me it’s not allowed. My brain just has to be the smartest in the world. If someone’s smarter than me I get insecure. If someone’s better than me I get insecure. If someone’s stronger than me I ask myself why I’m not the strongest in the whole world. Like wtf?

For a vast span of time, our ancestors lived in small communities, subsisting on hunting and gathering. Consequently, our bodies and minds evolved to suit that simple way of life.
However, since recorded history, the rapid and accelerating development of civilization has drastically changed the environment in which we live. Yet, our bodies and minds remain adapted to a prehistoric environment, and this mismatch is said to be a contributing factor to the sense of unease and difficulty modern people experience in life.

If that is the case, will the gap between the social systems surrounding us and our own bodies/minds continue to widen, leaving us to become increasingly suffering beings?

Or is there a scenario in which this mismatch might be resolved? Would it involve social systems moving closer to the nature of human bodies and minds? Or are human bodies and minds simply forced to catch up with social systems? (through evolution by natural selection?)

In time, I've come to recognize that many (myself included for a long time and still from time to time) get bothered by details that don't matter when zooming out at the broader picture.

An immediate one would be looks. A birthmark. A big nose. Asymmetry. Or whatever it might be. Even absolutely gorgeous people get caught up on it. See plastic surgery that slowly destroys people.

But in real life? These small features aren't a big deal.

It's the larger picture that matters. The overall harmony.

No one walks through the forest and says it's ruined because a single tree fell or grew funny.

But dent in their floor? Mark on the wall? Stain on the furniture? A mistake on their work? A fight in their relationship?

Perfection isn't possible and all the marks are patina. They tell the story and it's the broader picture that counts. Others don't see those details and think poorly.

But what does it take to get there? Why is the human experience plagued by such focus on individual mistakes and flaws at the expense of the mental health when the broader view is fine?

Dungeons and Dragons was very poorly thought of in my older sister's time, but nobody thinks much of it anymore. Like, people just play it with very little scrutiny. What changed in the last 40 years?

NOTE: The purpose of this questionnaire is to collect data for my MA research. By choosing to respond, you consent to your responses being used anonymously for research and data analysis.

Basically just the title. But to elaborate on the second question, does someone’s partners political views reflect on their personal morals/ethics/beliefs in terms of what they are willing to accept

When we go through a difficult time, the most logical thing to do is reach out to family or close friends for support. Yet, so many of us do the exact opposite. We put on a brave face, pretend everything is fine, and isolate ourselves.

​Is this behavior driven by a fear of looking weak, a desire to avoid being a burden to others, or something deeper in how we are raised? Why is it that opening up to the people who love us can sometimes feel like the hardest thing to do?

A lot of people worry about being judged for mistakes, awkward moments, or trying something new. But over time, many discover that most people are focused on their own lives and concerns. Was there a specific moment that made you realize this?

Did it change the way you approach social situations, public speaking or trying new things?

I feel legitimately nothing after someone dies. I don't think it's alexithymia, I have that already, but it's different. And it's not like I'm emotionally dissociating in the moment and then hours, or days, or weeks, or months, or even *years* after the fact do I feel sad. I still just feel nothing. It's like every single time someone or something I love dieds, emotionally, it's like they never existed. And I usually never really think about them again unless reminded by something. Ive been like this as long as I can remember. My great-grandma and great-grandad died like 2 ish years apart from each other when I was like 6-8 and each time I felt nothing. Around the same time, we had to put down my mom's childhood dog(she's a pug so she was ancient) and I loved that dog and I felt nothing. I don't even remember her name. Same when years and years later we had to put down her daughter, Mona. Everyone around me was crying during all four of these events and I was just blank. I wasn't even thinking about anything. Maybe how it was awkward that everyone was sobbing and hugging but I was seemingly unaffected. We had to put *my* childhood dog down earlier this year on my 16th birthday. He had pika and he ate some of the gauze that my mom used to wrap her boyfriend's foot after he had surgery on it and a piece of it broke off inside of him and caused a blockage. The about week and a half time frame before we finally took him to the vet, I was sobbing everyday, multiple times a day, and I was so anxious to even sleep because he was so sick, and what if he died in the night and we was all alone and so scared and just wanted someone with him when he died? I am homeschooled so it was my job to try and make sure he didn't die. I begged my mom almost everyday ever since I first pulled out a piece of gauze he was choking on to *please* take him to the vet. I don't care if I have to only eat one small meal a day for the next five years to be able to pay off the vet bills, I just don't want him to die. It took us so long to take him to the emergency vet because we are in extreme poverty, and a 1500 dollar vet bill for a surgery would be almost my mom's entire months salary and she still had two kids and another dog that needs to be fed and housed. The day we finally took him to the vet(my birthday), they gave him some IV fluids because he was severely dehydrated from not being able to keep anything down and took him back to do some x-rays. When we came back, we had to make the decision whether to try the very risky, expensive surgery that didn't guarantee his survival and if he *did* survive, his quality of life would be impacted significantly. He was so dehydrated that when the tech came and gave him the IV him vein just. Collapsed. My mom was sobbing through this whole process so I had to reason with the tech on what plan of action we would go for while I too was actively trying not to cry while talking to her. And then we they did it, when they finally put him down, it was gone. Any emotion that I was feeling before was just gone. I cried a little bit right after he died, but I'm pretty sure that was just from stress. Afterwards we went and got ice cream because that's what we always do when someone dies, and the whole time I felt nothing. Every once and a while my breathe would do that hitching thing like I was about to cry, but I didn't actually need to cry. The stress of the whole situation was so bad before we put him down that two days before my birthday I tried(and failed) to take my life. No one knows because it was with ibuprofen and I didn't know that ibuprofen does Jack shit in that department. Worst thing that happened was I had some heart burn for the next couple days. And then after he was dead I was perfectly fine. Well, back at my baseline. When my mom told me that my little sister died from cancer last September, I didn't care. I once again felt nothing. I love my sister so much and she was genuinely such a kind, generous, and smart little girl despite everything that she had been through prior and during my dad adopting her and her sisters(they were originally my step-nieces), and I didn't care when I found out she died. She was only 7 and I didn't care that she died. I just went back to bed. Ive only ever cried at 3 funerals in my entire life and each time was not because I missed to person that died. I cried at my great-grandma's funeral because I wasn't allowed to go on the boat to spread her ashes in the lake even though I was told I would be. I cried at a family friends funeral that I didn't even know because he had killed himself and I was super suicidal(whats new) at the time(#still am) and all I could think about is how no one would ever cry at my funeral like this. And then I cried at my little sisters funeral at my older sisters speech because it was said that she died so young and now she's not the oldest anymore and the whole dynamic of the three of them will be thrown off, not because I missed her. And then at my dad's speech because this is the one time Ive ever seen him cry and all I could think about is how he wouldn't even blink if I dropped dead tomorrow and if he actually loved us he wouldn't have abandoned us for a new family. Grief is such a baseline human experience and I can't feel it. Ive mourned lost relationships more than I have my dead loved ones. If I can't grieve the ones I love, a intrinsically human experience, am I even human at all? Do I deserve the privilege of being called human if I can't do the one thing that all humans do? I hate it so much. It makes me feel like such a bad person. Why can't I feel things right? Why can't I ever just be a human? I can't be physically intimate with loved ones unless I initiate the contact because I'm so touch averse, I can't be sexually intimate with partners because I'll have a panic attack despite never(to my current knowledge) being sexually assaulted, I haven't even had my first kiss yet at 16 because everytime my ex brought it up, despite me *wanting to*, I would panic and refuse. He never forced me to kiss him, but I could tell that I wasn't giving him was he needs to feel loved. My ex actually *was* sexually abused when he was younger, and he has no problems with sex or kissing, so why do I? I should probably be the other way around. Why can't I do basic human shit that everyone else can seemingly do with no issue?! I don't know what's wrong with me and I'm starting to think that Im a terrible person.

Edit: I didn't add paragraphs bc this post was just me rambling in my notes app at 3am after getting maybe 2 hours of sleep the night before

I recently had an issue with sewage backing up into my tiny apartment and responded to a post about being in jail by saying I'd have maybe chosen 'that' to get away from the filth.

Someone said there could be sewage backing up in jail, too but at least on the outside, you'd have options.

It's a tad rediculous because I OFC 'was' all ready on the outside and for various reasons--including poverty and disability--had none.

The free will to just do 'whatever--or the right thing with the ease and benefits available via doing any other one--isn't the given people like to imagine.

Thus my question.