I’ve become anarcho-communist in my political beliefs and value system. It took being in disability for 8 years after a serious mental health episode that made me start to become more of a humanist. The ample evidence of the problems of society due to capitalism and the widening wealth and resource gap pushed me very far to the left. I think I became a better person through my turnoil. I started understanding that we need to live for each other in addition to ourselves. The notion of bootstrapping is essentially a myth.

No one should be poor. No exceptions.

My stint in poverty wasn’t even that bad. Sure, I had $40 for food and gas for two weeks while the soles literally fell out of my shoes and off my feet while working in a hot kitchen for several years. But I wasn’t a migrant, legal or otherwise. I had an okay upbringing, and didn’t have trauma cut my future before it even started. I was never homeless. And so on.

Nonetheless, I felt taken advantage of over time. Eventually, the restaurant I worked at moved to a new location with me, gave me a rise to $10 per hr, which was huge to me, and then cut my hours in half. I had to get another job after helping these people through so much. I was one of the original employees at that location and was pushed out by management.

So, there was one burning question in my mind: why was I pushed out? But the question transformed into “Why did I have to go through that at all?”

One of the reasons I got an economics degree is to understand the most popular answers deeply. People are poor because they don’t work hard enough, they’re unskilled or low-skilled, government is taking your money, etc.

All of it is bullshit. All of it. Every last trash excuse that justifies poverty is a lie. Neoclassical economics is a theory of selfishness and misanthropy.

Poverty is a policy choice. Poverty, by America, by Matthew Desmond, is an excellent book about this. We give tax breaks for people owning second homes, for example. What else could the money collected from owners of second homes do for social policy? Reagan cut corporate taxes. But, if those taxes were higher, how could the money be used to alleviate poverty?

Essentially, I lived poverty, tried to understand why I endured it, and came up empty. There’s no reason other than selfishness why I endured it. And the same is true of everybody in poverty today around the entire world.

“Try not to be a dick” is probably the most base but somehow most meaningful phrase I’ve ever heard and I try to live by it. Sure there is a lot more to me and things go a lot deeper but I feel if everyone at least attempted to adhere to it then who knows what things might be like.

“Never trust a fart.” This phrase has inspired healthy skepticism ever since it was coined by Abraham Lincoln.

I tend to tutor people randomly. Siblings mostly, sometimes friends, occasionally strangers. It makes me feel good. I get a pretty strong shot of vicarious triumph when I help them achieve a goal.

And I would always hear the same things from people who struggled.

“I’m just not good at this” I would hear.

“I suck at math” would be pretty common too.

This was never spoken by people whose minds were actually incapable of comprehension. Each and every one of them proved smart enough to perform what they deemed an impossible task. But in order to instill the confidence necessary to make it through the problems, I always had to set them straight, open their minds to the possibility that they were wrong about themselves.

At first it seemed kind of inspirational: “no one is too stupid to accomplish their goals,” you know? But after it happened enough times, I started to feel like I was some brain surgeon pulling the same damn tumor out of patient after patient, skull after skull. It was a fucking epidemic of self-doubt so strong it literally affected people’s entire life trajectory.

At some point, unrelated to tutoring, I wound up chatting with a stranger who had just walked out of some, “Donald Trump’s key to success” kind of conference that had taken place on my campus. (It was like, 2013. I didn’t know who Donald Trump was back then.) He asked me a few questions. My answers impressed him, and he called me “smart.”

And I hated him instantly.

The second that word came out of his mouth, a wave of distrust and enmity washed over me, and I felt like he was trying to scam me. Mind you, I am a 5’11" 180lb man. It’s not like he was practicing pickup on me. It was almost-certainly an attempt at practicing the “networking” skills he picked up from the conference he just attended. And the only reason it didn’t play well to his audience was because I hated the word “smart” and hated anyone who believed in the concept.

And then, some years later, I was able to finally articulate it after someone chastised me online for calling my own actions stupid – for using, as a commenter described it, “an ableist slur.” Boy did the pieces click together after that.

This is going to seem crazy, but ladies, gentlemen, esteemed in-betweens: there is so such thing as “stupid.” There never was.

The human brain is a miraculous thing. It can literally rewire itself if it needs to. With the right techniques, a brain can even be induced to repair itself after certain kinds of strokes. Meaning if, hypothetically, one were “stupid” then the proper application of societal resources could actually turn that same person smart. Just like how I was able to tutor “bad at math” students into “good at math” students.

Which is probably why Rockefeller and Carnegie were so keen on making everyone believe in the concept. Because what I just described is expensive, and if there’s a ceiling on a person’s potential (like “stupid”), then that gives society a really good excuse to give up on that person before spending a dime.

“We’re already doing all we can for these people.” the well-intentioned steel monopolist tells you, “They get every opportunity they need. The reason they struggle so much in this society? They just… aren’t that bright. They were just never capable of that much to begin with.”

“Stupid” is, in other words, a social Darwinist myth created by billionaires to abdicate responsibility for the poverty they were creating. And if someone expresses a belief in, “stupid” I know I cannot count on them. I hope to someday surround myself with people who despise the word and everything it stands for. Because those are the people I can trust to actually improve the world.

I used to get frustrated with people very easily, and honestly I still do, but I’ve gotten much better at keeping my cool. I can’t think of any specific moment or anything that brought me here, but at some point I realized that getting angry and blowing up at somebody just doesn’t do anybody any good. Like even looking at it from a completely selfish perspective, shouting at somebody over an annoyance isn’t going to help me with anything at all, and in fact it’s likely to just make the situation worse. It’s been long enough that I don’t really even feel tempted to anymore.

Another thing is like… I used to lean much more conservative until I eventually realized that it’s just rather self-destructive. I never bought into the more extreme stuff like believing certain ethnicities are inherently, genetically inferior to others, but to put it simply for a while I was convinced that things like feminism and environmentalism were going to “take stuff away from me.” Not even on some grand scale of like destroying western civilization or whatever people like to say these days, but just that I as an individual would be less likely to succeed and get rich or whatever.

I was more libertarian-ish in college, and I think it was all the battles for net neutrality around 2013-2015 or so that finally got me to realize that a complete lack of government oversight would be untenable for anyone who isn’t already wealthy. From there, especially as the online right started getting louder and crazier, I started to figure out that the same people who’d been “warning” me and other sad nerds like me about feminism and whatever were the only ones who were actually trying to force people to do anything. Most people just want to exist, man. They’re not trying to push some agenda on everyone else, they just wanna live their damn lives.

As for the environmentalism bit, yeah I only ever “doubted” climate change because I thought trying to prevent it was gonna stop me from getting rich and having a fancy car and shit. I always knew it was real, I just wanted to not care and be all belligerent about it. And no, of course I didn’t have a plan for how I was gonna get rich lmao, I was a dumb, selfish kid. Now I know I’ll never get rich no matter what I do and we’re all gonna die in a climate disaster anyway, so whatever lol.

I dunno how much I can say any of this guides or inspires me, but I do feel like I’ve become a better person at least, somehow.

I’m trying to be more kind. Normally, I tend to be analytical and abrupt. If someone is wrong, I try to demonstrate it a simply as possible and move on. If they’re right, that is good, there’s no reason to celebrate; move on. I find most people don’t respond well to any of this, for their own reasons. So, I’m trying to set that aside and simply be more gentle when handling interactions with another person.

People like to say that as you get older, you become more conservative. It’s been the exact opposite for me and I have my parents to thank. They never pushed political or religious bullshit on me, but I saw their humanist accepting personalities and it shaped me more than either of them ever knew.

I’ve gotten more confident in my views and try to convey that the only way to survive is as a working class collective that doesn’t fall for political theater like we constantly see today. It’s lead me to be more supportive of others at work, to be more nuanced, and it’s helped me become a better leader and teacher.

It’s helped me settle into who I actually am and has allowed me to better tune out the constant noise from people that can’t help but cheer on political demagogues and their pointless nonsense.

Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone for any reason ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been… ever, for any reason whatsoever…

-Michael Scott

So many to choose from :) I guess for today it will be… Shit happens.
Bad things can happen to you for no reason. You can agonize over it, wonder why, etc. Or you can accept that it happened, focus on dealing with the consequences and try to make the best out of it.
It’s not always easy, but I do feel it has made me more laid back and happier in general.

Edited because Thelsim doesn’t know how to proofread

I do my best work when I’m empowering others.

Sure, I can take the spotlight and do some really cool things. But when I support others, for example by helping them figure out or achieve their goals, create opportunities, connect people, etc., then I’m helping add even more good to the world.

Not a direct answer to your question, but I read How to be Perfect last year. Michael Schur (creator of Parks and Rec) wrote the book as an exploration of the research they did to make The Good Place.

It’s a survey of philosophy for non-philosophers and does a great job breaking down how to make good choices without being preachy.

Here’s the link

Shared spaces are everyone’s space and obligation. Trash or a tree branch on the road or sidewalk? Rather than “not my concern” a mindset of “shared space, shared responsibility/free to clean up” mindset will serve everyone - and especially those not currently able to do so/that could be hindered by the obstacles.

“Everyone” meaning every individual fully rather than split/miniscule parts.

Be excellent to each other and party on dudes. It’s a fun movie with a simple principle which I try to follow. It’s also a reminder to have fun and enjoy the little things. The world would be a much better place if everyone followed it.

Almost all fights/arguments come out of misunderstandment. It’s not always misunderstanding the situation itself but what led the other person to this situation. Why is he/she saying this? It’s hard enough to also understand what a person is saying. But once you understand both, it’s hard to be upset.

My other most important value; let others be others. You and everyone can do as you like as long as no one is forced into it as well. Example: someone going through abortion with a fetus not capable of feeling does not affect anyone since it’s unknowing and the abortion itself doesn’t force others into a debate or partaking. However, denying the possibility of abortion will limit the person wanting abortion.

Edit: what brought me to this was just pure experience and socialization. My second girlfriend helped me get to the first point. The other one I guess my parents instilled.