Being able to recognize subjectivity

 Subjectivity is the concept that when it comes to certain things that there is no right or wrong, there is only opinion. Subjectivity and morality rarely mix. Just as there is no right and wrong when it comes to favourite colour or favourite food, such applies to many aspects of life that society tends to forget are completely subjective. 

I talk a lot about projection. I believe that all human's disagreements/differences root to projection. The lack of ability to see subjectivity vs objectivity comes from the need to project. If you really think about it, there is no right and wrong when it comes to music taste, movie taste, clothing taste, etc. We tend to get lost in our need to project and forget that many of the things we demonize people for are still completely subjective. 

Body type is subjective, style is subjective, politics are subjective, religion is subjective. The list goes on and on. When it comes to subjectivity, because there is no right or wrong there is no majority rules. Sure, majority rules will win an election, but that still doesn't mean the majority is right and the minority is wrong. Just because majority of society strive for a certain body type, follow a certain style, listen to a certain type of music, etc doesn't mean that these preferences are more correct than others. Doesn't mean that people in minorities of these preferences are in the wrong. Majority rules doesn't even mean that objective facts are correct.

It's important in life to check ourselves when it comes to believing our preferences are superior or that they are a right vs wrong. You don't need to slam someone for liking a type of music that is widely disapproved of, nor do you need to take personal offense to someone disliking your favourite music. This is the key to being able to peacefully and happily co-exist with our fellow humans. This is the key to ending bigotry. We don't have to agree on everything, we just have to respect everyone's right to their own opinions without getting upset about differing opinions.

Knocking others down shows weakness. Building others up shows strength.

Being judgemental comes from a lack of happiness and love with one's self. That hole inside you cannot be filled by taking a chunk of someone else. You cannot build yourself up by knocking others down, nor can you build yourself up by mentally placing yourself as superior to others. No matter how you try to excuse your projection as being smarter or morally superior or whatnot, subconsciously you know you are projecting. Subconsciously you know that you're not fighting to help society, but to help your own self esteem at someone else's expense.

If people are factually wrong or being immoral, you cannot change their mind by attacking them. As I've been told for many years by my mentor, you cannot shove anything down anyone's throat without getting them to open their mouth first. You can only educate people by getting on the same level and doing it politely and respectfully. The root of all bigotry and (human caused) problems in the world is from people who need to feel like they're better than others to maintain their self esteem. So many people these days are looking so hard to be offended (or find misinformation) so they can take a stance of moral or intellectual superiority, that they twist and pick apart your words to accuse you of saying things you didn't. They think they are fighting toxicity but they are toxic projecting as well.

When you stop comparing yourself to others (as either above or beneath you) then you can become aware of your own toxicity, as well as talents and good qualities, and be able to work on yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve. When I learned how to do this, it was the first time ever in my life that I felt a sense of happiness and fulfillment. 

Pets and executive dysfunction

For those that do not know, executive dysfunction is the term used to describe when people with mental or physical disorders/disabilities lack the mental energy to do necessary tasks. Often referred to as not having enough "spoons" to be able to do things.

People who suffer from anxiety disorders, autism, mood disorders, and even physical disorders or disabilities often can feel the struggle of not being able to get things done. This can involve going to work every day, going on errands like grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions. This also largely involves one's self care. People may struggle to be able to force themselves to do necessary task regularly enough to take proper care of themselves and their homes. This can involve brushing your teeth and hair regularly, getting out of bed, practising proper hygiene, taking medications every day on time, cleaning and tidying one's home, or otherwise being able to tend to the obligations in our daily lives that we all have.

When people experience executive dysfunction, they may not have the energy, the energy may be taken up by stress, anxiety, and/or depression, or one may simply just lack the will. What makes executive dysfunction different from laziness is the fact that when people experience executive dysfunction, they cannot force themselves to do tasks no matter how much they want to or know they need to. They freeze up and just cannot make their body do what it needs to for the task to be worked on. 

There have been many findings, both by psychological experts as well as individuals through their own experiences, that having a pet is the best drive to help people who suffer from executive dysfunction. Having a pet forces one to have a routine. If you do not get up to feed, water, and give attention to your pet, the pet's health will suffer. Often times the pet will force you to get up and follow a routine before their health suffers from neglect. 

This is not what is the driving force in most cases, however. Rather than the pet forcing you, people are driven to stick to a routine for the sake of their pet just because the pet is family to them. The pet offers them comfort and they form such a bond that people find they are able to break through their dysfunction for the better of the pet.

Executive dysfunction is a vicious cycle. The neglect of one's life, home, and body leads to guilt that makes existing depression worse. People often feel they are not worth the self care or don't have enough drive to break through because they are the only ones that suffer. The drive to take care of a pet is often found to be incredibly stronger than the drive to take care of one's self. One would think if someone struggles to take care of themselves that having a pet would be a horrible idea because they would neglect the pet as well. This is found to be vastly untrue.

Pets are much more than social companions. The social companionship drives many of those with executive dysfunction to be able to function. If they do not take care of their home and their pet, the pet will suffer. They force people to have a routine and a strict routine is the best solution to minimize the inability to go about daily or otherwise regular tasks. When we have to stick to a routine for the better of a dependant pet, it makes it easier for us to create and stick to a routine to take care of ourselves and thrive in life. Even just having a fish has been shown to have a massive difference in the experiences one has with struggling to complete daily/regular tasks and chores. Having a pet is not just for the better of people who are lonely that live alone, but for those who struggle with executive dysfunction, therefore society and supports for those with disabilities need to be more supportive of people with mental disorders or with disabilities in general having pets. These pets are not being neglected. The concept that pets of people who struggle to take care of themselves are neglected or will be neglected is a stigma. 

"But I don't....."

Society is infected with contagious narcissistic tendencies. Part of becoming humble is to recognize these tendencies learned from society. One that I am focusing on in this post is people's tendency to use themselves to invalidate others.

What I mean is people use their experiences, symptoms, etc to determine how others should be. On social media you can make a statement about "most" of a certain group has a certain behaviour or trait and there will always be people piping up saying you're wrong because they don't fit into the description you just explained.

Every day we should be making the effort to recognize that everyone is different. Everyone is not you. Your experiences, symptoms, traits, do not disprove statements of "most" made or disprove what others claim they experience. 

You can have anxiety disorder, but not everyone who has anxiety disorder will be like you. In fact it is extremely rare that someone would be exactly like you. There are different severities and there are many symptoms that not everyone with anxiety disorder has. I'm just using anxiety disorder as an example because it is popularly used to invalidate others who have anxiety disorders that have differing struggles.

Everything in life is a spectrum. The most important part of understanding that things are a spectrum is to picture it like the colour circle on a computer program where you select a colour and shade, rather than picturing the term spectrum as a horizontal rectangular colour gradient. The spectrum does not represent severity of the disorder overall, but more so represents that out of a long list of symptoms for said disorder, people will not have all of them and will not experience a common severity across all of their symptoms. One may have certain symptoms in extreme severity whereas others are barely noticeable or not even present. How are you to scale overall severity of someone's case of a disorder this way? You can't! 

We need to stop viewing the validity of others in reference to ourselves. This also goes for the concept of people invalidating or minimizing other people's pain and suffering based on scaling it in reference to their own. We need to stop telling people that their suffering isn't much or somehow doesn't count because it is not as severe as one's own or others, example the "There are starving kids in Africa" line. 

Every single person with every single disorder has a list of characteristics unique to themselves. No 2 people with the same disorder are alike. We need to stop rating the validity of other people's experiences based on our own.

In general we need to stop judging how others should be, based on how we are. We need to stop judging what is right and wrong based on whether or not we do it or would do it. (Example: judging the way someone dresses or their lifestyle choices.) Just because you wouldn't do it or you would feel a certain way if you did, doesn't mean others who do things are in the wrong. These are all matters of opinion. If people are not negatively affecting others, they are not doing something wrong. Just because you like one thing and dislike another, doesn't mean those who like what you dislike or dislike what you like are immoral in any kind of way. Doesn't mean they deserve to be looked down on. The concept that others have to be like you in order to be a valuable human being and to be deserving of respect is a narcissistic tendency. It's like the whole pineapple on pizza debate; there is no right or wrong and there is nothing wrong with those who have preferences different than yours, even if it is different than majority. Right and wrong is not determined by majority. Majority of people can still be wrong or majority of people can have an opinion where no one is wrong on that matter. People show so much unnecessary hate towards people who are not deserving of it. This hate is not only toxic to society and toxic to other's mental and physical health, but it is toxic to your own mental and physical health.

Remember from my other post about projection, the act of looking down on someone for any reason is projection. Even if you're looking down on someone that you have judged to be a bad person. Even if someone is a killer, looking down on them is projection. If we weren't projecting, we would instead look deeper for sufficient evidence rather than coming up with answers so quickly and based off of so little. We would have compassion to ask why. What happened to this person to lead them to do this? Only hurt or unwell people hurt people. This biased way of thinking is what leads to heavier people being stigmatized in every possible situation (At a fast food restaurant being judged as they must always go there. Limping, disabilities, or other visible medical conditions such as hyperhydrosis, being accredited to their weight). 

In order to be a humble and compassionate person, we need to learn to accept and respect our differences. 

Everyone's jealous?

One of the parts of society in this day and age that makes me absolutely sick is that everyone loves to use the words "jealous" and "hater".

99% of the time someone doesn't like someone when it's not because they're socially awkward, it's because that person is a crappy person and has an unattractive personality. Yet 99% of the time someone doesn't like someone, the person who is disliked and their friends say they're jealous.

That is narcissism. Remember, narcissists are not ACTUALLY super vain. Narcissism is a self defence mechanism for extreme insecurity and often times long term childhood trauma. Their sense of self esteem is basically a house of cards, which is why they point the finger at those who find fault in them because they can keep their house of cards up if people who don't like them or find fault in them are the one's with the problem. They will always deflect and point the finger, unless it's to gain pity and take the sympathy attention away from others.

Nobody is perfect. No matter who you are, no matter how old you are, no matter how far you've come, EVERYBODY has room to improve and EVERYBODY should always be trying to self improve. People love to deflect and project by acting like everyone who doesn't like them is jealous.

When really there's nothing to be jealous about because the reasons you think they are jealous are just areas of your life that you overcompensate for so that you feel like a valuable enough person and can stuff all your problems and flaws back to where you're not even consciously aware of them anymore. Things like being physically attractive, being fit, making good money, etc.

It is extremely unhealthy not just for society but for yourself. 

People are not jealous of you. Often times you just have an unattractive personality, you're pig headed, and you are a crappy human being. Most of the time people are widely disliked is because they are just not a decent human being.

Stop pointing the finger and be better. There's a huge difference between just not fitting in because you're socially awkward or because you have a strong personality and strong opinions, and large numbers of people not liking you because you're so cocky, arrogant, and full of yourself. The assumption that everyone is jealous of you is just part of you being a crappy person and is one of the reasons people don't like you.

You can be confident but still be humble. You can be confident and have self love without thinking and acting like you are better than other people. You can still have compassion and not look down on others.

Remember, the act of looking down on ANYONE for ANY reason is projecting. It's not about them, it's about you. Only hurt people hurt people. The only thing that leads to people doing bad things is mental illness and mental trauma. Doesn't matter if someone suffers addiction, doesn't matter if someone steals, doesn't matter if someone is even a murderer, we should still have compassion and not look down on people because everyone has a deep reason for why they do bad things. People don't just decide to be bad and do bad things. It is a life of trauma and/or mental illness so therefore it is out of their control and they need help. If you look down on anyone, it's projecting and it means you are only doing so to feel better about yourself in some way. You are not taking any kind of moral highroad by attacking and slamming others who have done or said immoral things.

Society's habit of constantly projecting their problems

Something that I feel society needs to be educated more on is projection.

Society has become very sick. With social media and the ability to say things anonymously, people no longer know healthy methods of coping with their self esteem. If people feel inferior, they can just go onto the internet and project that upon someone. You can go correct people to feel smart, you can shame someone to feel like a good person with superior morals, and you can straight up just be brutally mean to someone to feel better about yourself. This behaviour very quickly flooded into in-person behaviour.

It's not just something teachers tell you, that people bully to feel better about themselves. It's basic psychology. People don't feel so low when they can look down on someone else. People do not know how to survive emotionally without looking down on someone else anymore.

They pick the most vulnerable people. They pick on people that struggle with addiction, people of certain races or that are LGBTQ2+, people who are over or underweight, and people who are disabled. Bigotry is projection. The hate comes from a place of being insecure. People pick these groups of people because they pick people who they think they can justify bullying because they can blame these people for their problems. They will never listen to any information, any proof, or any expert on the facts regarding certain groups of people because then they could not justify bullying these people so they can bully these people guilt free. They will never listen that addiction is a disease, not a choice; that addiction comes from trauma. They will never listen that roughly half of people who are obese have AT LEAST ONE underlying condition that prevents them from losing weight the typical way. They will fight and fight that fact no matter what proof they are given from experts that it's "extremely rare" for people to have conditions that prevent them from losing weight by simple diet and exercise. 

There are many signs that you are projecting. People need to learn to recognize it so they can work on themselves and evolve. Everyone does it. I am not trying to say I am morally superior because I do not project. It happens, but the important thing is at the end of the day I think to myself "Why did I react that way?" and get to the root of my emotions that caused me to act negatively towards someone and I work on that root problem in my life. 

1. If you find yourself looking down on anyone for ANY reason, you are projecting. We need to learn compassion because only hurt people hurt people. Nobody who is 100% mentally healthy does ill things towards others. People are often born with mental illness or they develop it from trauma. 

2. If you beat a dead horse. If you cannot convince someone of what you believe to be a fact but you just keep arguing and arguing instead of just agreeing to disagree and walking away, you are projecting.

3. If you act negatively towards someone who wasn't doing anything wrong. Like making a rude comment as you pass by.

4. If you compare yourself to others in any way in which makes you feel superior somehow. Even if it's just feeling morally superior.

5. If you find yourself spewing things you believe to be facts but are unfounded because you never actually researched the topic from reputable resources before correcting people.

6. If you believe something is fact despite contradictions from officially declared scientific facts based on groups of elite experts and statistics. 

7. If you think people should have to follow your opinions. If people should have to look a certain way or have certain interests because it's what YOU prefer and you feel that people who are different are in the wrong because most of society shares your opinion on personal appearance, interests, hobbies, etc.

People need to stop focusing on everyone else's problems to avoid acknowledging their own problems.

"Be nice to people because you never know what struggles they are going through"

An example of why to be nice to people because you never know what they're dealing with.

Society is really mean to me. It doesn't help that I live in a city that absolutely loves to stare at and judge everyone and they don't feel embarrassed or rude to be caught staring. They WANT you to feel judged. They feel certain people deserve it. I'm one of those people. I'm society's scapegoat. Heaven forbid in this society that you are a WOMAN that is overweight. Society is 1000x harsher towards women who are overweight than men. On top of that, this backwards society wants me to feel shamed because I choose to dye my hair unnatural colours, I choose to have piercings and tattoos, and I choose to dress like a typical metal head or punk.

What people don't realize when they decide to stare, give me a judgmental look, or talk negatively about me right in front of me, is that they're not the only ones. Not to mention the fact that you CANNOT talk about someone within their view without them knowing. It is impossible. Your body language just screams it out, even if that person cannot hear what you are saying or do not understand the language you are speaking. Society is so non-confrontational and so spineless that people don't know how obvious it is because they never get called out on it. People are so afraid of being gaslit for calling people out on that, they don't do it, so these people that talk about people in front of them think people can't tell. There's also the fact that people somehow justify their bullying in their head. They think that you deserve it to force you to change as if they're somehow helping you. They don't realize that no one is here for THEM and they have no right to try to bully someone into changing their appearance to suit their tastes. What they also don't realize is how frequent it is aside from them doing it. When buddy has to give me a rude judgmental look, he doesn't realize that I already had many others do it to me.

If that type of bullying worked, I would not be fat and I would dress "normal" because it happens that often. I go to a store 4 blocks from my house and 6 different people will make me feel judged on the way there. If people understood how frequent people like me have to deal with blatant judging, then they'd realize doing it doesn't achieve anything for them.

Aside from that, I have my own struggles aside from everyone else giving me a hard time. Being this size is hard enough just to exist without the bullying. You can't fit in bus seats, you can't fit in restaurant seats if the chairs have arm rests. You can't fit in booths at restaurants either unless the table is not fixed and can be moved. You cannot sit anywhere where you cannot adjust the distance of the seat from the table. Bending is a struggle. Exercising is a struggle. Climbing stairs is a huge struggle. It's hard to find clothes that fit that aren't something your middle aged mom would wear. Plus size women's clothing is ridiculously expensive. I spend as much on a pair of jeans as one would spend on a pair of DESIGNER jeans and on top of that the companies know we are prone to wear out pants in the inner thigh so they make all the materials thinner so they can force us to buy more. The plus size clothing industry is a huge scam. I feel embarrassed in public or in front of friends because of my symptoms of my EDS that everyone will want to blame on my weight. I have hyperhydrosis. If I sweat too much, limp, walk too slow, wear a knee or wrist brace, everyone blames my weight. It is hard to sit comfortably because my weight exacerbates my back problems and there's a limited number of positions I can actually sit in. If all of those struggles don't make my life miserable enough to "just" lose the weight, then people treating me like garbage in public, or people I meet through the grapevine hating my guts upon first sight, isn't gonna solve my weight issue either.

The weight is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my personal struggles. I have a coordination problem. So often times when I have to run errands, I run out of spoons before I even get out of the door. I have to wrestle to get my clothes on. I drop things frequently. I fumble frequently. If I had a dollar for every time that I ran out of patience before I left the house, and then had to deal with how everyone treats me in public after that. When I have no patience left for that, I end up scolding people or even yelling at them and making myself look unstable and crazy. This just adds to the embarrassment I have from being in public and being the size I am and struggling with my connective tissue disorder that causes all these visible symptoms that I know people have a habit of stereotyping as  fat person things. 

I also have sensory processing disorder. My brain does not filter out background information as well as others. Normal people's brains will filter out useless consistent information. You never notice that you can always see your nose or your breathing until you pay attention, because your brain filters it out as useless information. You don't hear what others are saying in a crowd unless you listen. My brain does not filter out this information. I do not need to eavesdrop, I just hear everything. My brain doesn't filter out background noise or my peripheral vision. I notice when everyone is looking at me weird or talking about me, even if it's a situation where if it wasn't me the person wouldn't notice. So I notice it all. I cannot filter it out. I cannot ignore it. Even a typical brain could not ignore people being so rude when it's so frequent.

We need to stop gaslighting people. We need to stop telling people to ignore things and start telling people to stop being mean and rude to each other. We need to stand up for ourselves more. Society is only so harsh and rude because people believe too much in turning the other cheek and we don't have enough social consequences for people who are rude. We need to stand up for our friends and stand up for strangers when we see people being bullied. We need to stop telling everyone on social media to ignore things and start telling people to stop treating people badly. Stop victim blaming and gaslighting. Think about the fact that people have their own struggles before you make a rude comment or gesture.