Marginalia

It makes sense that in times of distress, we turn inward, instead of outward. We turn to the important relationships, like family and friends. It's a retreat to the things that ground us.

We are trained to not put in the effort, because the shared context enables an effortless friendship. So when effort is required, we do nothing.

It is hard for teachers to educate the kids properly on this topic, because then they would have to question their own stance on what happens to the animals. Explaining it to a kid would reveal how cruel what we do to animals actually is, because a kid does not have this strong cognitive dissonance yet. But yes, it would be totally right to give the correct information to children so they can think about their stance from an early age.

A lot of our preferences exist because we decide at some point in time that they are our preferences now. After this decision, we live with them and solidify them, without knowing exactly why we have them. I think a lot of our preferences can be changed easily if we want to, because they were adopted without much reason.

It is a blessing to have friends who have stuck with me since my teenage years. Most people I meet already have a well-established circle of friends, which makes it hard to fit in. There's a higher chance that they won't have time or space for new friendships.

And still, we want to be more like the people who appear "interesting", because they seemingly attract other people.

To write anything worthwhile, we have to be invested. And the easiest way to be invested is to feel strong emotions toward something.

Yes, the internet has much more to offer than the same 5-7 sites mentioned. Most people don't want to put in the effort to explore alternatives because it's just too convenient to stay on the same few sites. People would have to curate their feeds themselves, which often requires additional technical solutions (like feed readers). They often view the algorithm as a big advantage because it removes friction.

While some self-help books really helped me, the lessons from fiction books often stick with me more. Maybe because stories tend to stick better than more science-related writing, or because we identify more with the characters of these stories and have to apply the wisdom directly to their situations.

This is my first reaction to another blog post. That post inspired me to keep a log of interesting things I find online. I will send webmentions to every site I reference here (if the site supports them). Thanks again for sending me my first webmention! I didn't know it was actually working before.