My parents have always been left-wing hippies and entertained the odd conspiracy theory, but during the pandemic they got lost down YouTube rabbit holes and bought into Q-Anon and anti-vax ideas. They still don’t believe Covid is real (even though they blatantly had it…).
We’ve just kind of agreed not to talk about it anymore, but they’ve steadily become more and more batshit and I think they believe I have been brainwashed.
Anyone else’s familial relationships changed forever?
My mother raised me to see “I’m one of the good guys” as a part of who I was. I was so sure that I was a good person, because basically I was raised to believe it. As an axiom, almost.
But as I’ve finally started to accept my shadow, that I’m not an angel, it’s given me a view into how much good I actually do in the world and I realized me having warm fuzzy feelings for cute things doesn’t make me a good person. In fact, I’m kind of shitty because I sneak around doing shit I know people would be mad at me doing, I make promises I would know I’m going to break, if I simply looked at my track record realistically.
It made me realize there’s a segment of culture where you basically see yourself as the good guys as an axiom, or as a super weak conclusion from observing your own guilt, compassion, kindness, etc.
Or because I would never consciously, deliberately set out to wrong someone. I mean, I wronged people all the time by misleading them about how committed I was, about what I would deliver, how capable I was, etc.
I’m having trouble describing how deep, and irrational, this belief in my own good-sider nature. Like, if I’d put myself into the Star Wars universe, I’d see myself as a Jedi. Despite the fact I spent days, months, decades even indulging in exactly what Yoda described as the path to the Dark Side.