Ah, that old pattern. Damn. I recognize it and see it way too much around. Luckily not much in my inner circles, but spaces I can’t avoid like work for example. It’s starting to eat up on me.

This is one of those weirdly specific pet peeves I have. For the life of me I can not get into the headspace where that is the outcome of the whole chain of logic and intuition that goes into having that stance, and, more importantly, holding to it despite ample chances, throughout tens of years, to change your mind or act differently. At 50, I see you’re still lashing out in this pattern? But why, man, why?

Surely it ought to feel good to see others doing the right thing, so it wouldn’t feel as bad for yourself to do the wrong thing. Assuming you can’t just stop doing it (Many habits are extremely hard to kick, so that’s entirely human and understandable, not faulting anyone for that). But this way, the total amount of good is better when it’s only you doing the wrong thing, so you can just be the margin of error, sort of? Have less of a negative impact overall. Be implicitly slightly better yourself, by this grace of others. Or at least you should end up feeling that way, or something along those lines, right? Or at the very least, feel just nothing, be entirely oblivious to the whole thing. That’d be human and understandable too. It’s a habit. You don’t necessarily think about those. You just do them.

But to lash out for that? Be conscious enough to realize this all, but instead of any other kind of understandable human way, you, of all things, lash out to those doing the different thing. I just can’t figure it out. Why? I suppose it could be a subconscious coping mechanism to shield one’s self from the fact that they are not doing the right thing, but it feels off that it would come out aggressive or you know combative some way. At others, at least. I get that you might feel bad, and “guilty”, sort of, but surely nobody’s mind goes from “I feel guilty” to “it’s your fault I’m feeling guilty”? Ugh.

I find my lack of perspective often very anxiousness-inducing. I can emphatise with such a wide range of lives and beings and situations, but there are so many I simply can’t, often similar to this specific thing. Makes me nervous about me potentially being selfish or stubborn because I can’t see it. This is one of those things. Makes me sweat, almost.