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High-control apostates

My thought of the day: high-control religions are likely to produce high-control apostates.

If you grew up with an extremely rigid and strict religion in your upbringing, you’re very likely to carry that forward into adulthood.

This explains people who leave the Church, and then insist that everyone who stays in the Church is obviously buying into every single interpretation that they themself believed. And it explains people who leave the Church and become, essentially, Fundamentalist Atheists. (This latter was very common during the ascent of the Four Horsemen of Atheism. All the online discourse about “Magic Sky Daddy” or “Sky Fairy” came from this kind of attitude.)

In reality, religion is a product of humans, and humans are varied and mutable. Someone can be a member of a religion you dislike without necessarily espousing every aspect of that religion that you dislike.

If you have left a high-control religion: that is okay. Just try to moderate your reactions to other people’s beliefs, and really analyze why you assume certain things about them.

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Milestones

I think the marker for middle age and/or maturity is “when you start having opinions about Bradford Pears.”

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Incrementalism

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine described herself as “incrementalist.” I think that’s a very good word.

Today, I saw this skeet. I’m going to copy the text here in case it gets deleted.

The way I’ve heard it explained is that there are people who are
1) actively against you
2) passively against you
3) don’t care
4) passively support you
5) actively support you

You’ll never get from 1 to 5 in one jump, so you want to move each person 1 notch more supportive. 1→2, 3→4, 4→5, etc

And that’s a very good explanation of how I view political discussions.

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Lunch Invitations

In a work context, “We’re all going to lunch” usually carries the implication of “Would you like to join us?”

If you’re still not sure if the implication is present, you can ask “Mind if I come along?” Or “Do you have space for one more?” Or something similar.

Here is an Instagram video about this!

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An octopus wearing a hat

Many years ago, I had a friend who tended to split things into either Good Thing or Bad Thing.

This went not just for things/ideas, but also for people.

And because they split the world into these categories, they also assumed that everyone else split the world the same way: there was no room for shades of grey, in their worldview.

On one memorable occasion, they posted about a very ambitious home renovation project; I suggested they take a carpentry class at Home Depot before jumping into the project, and they accused me (and everyone else who commented on the post) of being a malicious saboteur of their projects, and ended the screed with “Do you think I’m smart and competent, or do you think I’m an octopus wearing a hat?”

Friends: there is a lot of daylight between those two things.

I think about that conversation whenever I am tempted to split the world into black and white, good and bad, yin and yang. (Okay, maybe not that last.) It’s possible to receive criticism without assuming the critic hates you and thinks you’re wholly incompetent.

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How to Human: Conversation and taking turns

The CA Reddit forum reposted this one from 2019:

#1168 and #1169: Friendship, Conversation, and TAKING TURNS

Learning how to take turns in conversation was one of the really important things for me, growing up. I don’t think anyone explicitly taught it to me, but especially after I got over my childhood “just never talk to strangers, ever” dealie, it helped to realize that other people like to talk about themselves, too! Even if you yourself don’t care about the other person (like if they’re a store clerk or whatever) it’s still a kind and pro-social thing to ask them about themselves.

But not to excess. And not everyone appreciates it.

But it’s as good a starting place as any. Refine your technique from there.

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Being a cable guy

This essay was very poignant.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/cable-tech-dick-cheney-sex-dungeon_n_5c0ea571e4b06484c9fd4c21

It’s the kind of thing that would have completely changed my perspective if I had read it in 2007, because I simply was not exposed to this kind of job back then. Not that I am a lot now, but, I’m at least a little better informed.

It is good for growing empathy for people in low wage jobs, people on disability, people with addictions.

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Your son might work bagging groceries for the rest of his life.

Saw this Substack post today.

https://substack.com/@carriecariello/note/c-166796284?r=2ng1ln

“Your son might work in a grocery store bagging groceries for the rest of his life.”

And? So what? That’s an important job. Grocery stores are fundamental in keeping our society running.

The people who work in our grocery stores are an important part of our community.

And they should be able to afford to live in any community in this country.

This is why I support subsidized housing in my neighborhood. Because people like Jack deserve to live among people like me.

Don’t be an ableist, classist shitheel. Support integrated subsidized housing.