Who said nobody likes me? I'm a charming motherfucker :)

Assholes that are assholes all the time in all ways aren't exactly rare, they just tend to be CEOs and politicians. The rest of us are the usual mix of ingredients.

Look, lemme step outside of the whole vegan chain for a minute.

Humanity, humans, are animals. We're driven by chemicals and instincts and reactions to stimumi. Out of that mess, we somehow manage to sometimes rise above it, but most of us, most of the time, are so wrapped up in our own shit that we never think. Even when we're aware of that, we simply can't maintain the level of meta-awareness needed to STAY above the inner animal.

Ever get grumpy when you're tired, and snap at someone? That's the inner monkey pulling the real self back into the drives of the body. And even the most dedicated monks can't meditate that away completely.

Us being assholes? That's our inner monkey slapping us around and taking the steering wheel for a while.

That's a different kind of asshole than the kind of asshole that's always like that for whatever reason, and even that's a different thing than the folks that take joy in causing misery.

You see the baseline I'm talking about here? Most assholes like you and me are nice and treat people well most of the time. But we're still animals. We're still driven by the meat we ride around in. It's all about when and where and how the inner monkey flings poo, and how much rein we have with it.

Scroll around lemmy. It's a leftist paradise, right? Anything from progressive to far left extremism. You'd expect the folks in the progressive, humanist range to be fairly nice, right? They are mostly, but they still have their moments. It might be MAGA, it might be tankies, it might be shitty drivers, or firearms, but there's something that bypasses most people's reins and lets the inner monkey out to screech and bare its teeth. And these are the "sane" people. These are the ones that stand up for human rights and are allies to the downtrodden.

That's what I'm getting at. My inner monkey is just easy to please, and I don't argue with it. I see bigotry, I let it fling poo. I see a stuffed shirt pretending to be better than other people by virtue of some random belief system, I let it fling poo. I agree with my inner monkey. I'm not better than some vegan zealot, I'm not better than you, I'm not better than anyone. I'm just another asshole.