Help me make sense of people. I just realized something, why am I the "weird kid" in my community?

Random Fun
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When I was younger, I used to live in a gated community, and I never got to know the other kids despite seeing their faces almost every day. I was a loner; therefore, people find me weird.

One day, I watched a group of boys pick up a stray cat that was eating garbage. You would expect them to play with the dirty animal. The Bible says Children are a heritage from the Lord. Well, these little “Heritages” cut open the cat’s belly with what I think is a knife. Because it doesn’t even look like a knife at all, but it might as well be one because of how sharp it is.

I merely watched them; I don’t want to get into trouble with some kids carrying a sharp object. After that, I left. I don’t know what happened to the cat, but it’s easy to sleep if I were to say that it was pretty quick.

Dead cats aren’t new to me. My neighbor murdered my George after he got into their chicken coop and killed one of their chicks. I can’t prove it, though, but I know it’s him. He once returned George to me, saying that I should put a leash on my cat because it tried to kill his chicken.

The problem was, I was a kid back then, and my parents didn’t even like George. They wouldn’t even want to claim him as “our” pet. And as a kid, I did not listen to my neighbor. So George died the moment he decided to snack on a baby chicken once again, just like any other cat.

I talked to my parents about my neighbor murdering George. They merely told me that I brought this upon myself. They told me it’s my fault that I adopted a dirty cat. Well, George is kind of dirty. I found him injured in a trash can and decided to take him home and feed him because he was a cute kitten.

So two garbage cats are basically living in my memories now. But the death is not what disturbed me.

What disturbs me is that every Sunday, those very same boys and my neighbor go to church alongside my parents to pray faithfully to God.

I don’t understand people. I like to think that human beings would desire a necessary good, which is why they make churches. But then there’s George, the cat that those boys killed, and me who says there is NO GOD.

Guess who is going to heaven in their perspective?

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There is a reason I would rather believe myself that I have no childhood, that I was born in the apartment I rented this year. My purpose is my 9-5 job. How did I get my job? It just appeared into existence.

My birth certificate, the pictures of me as an infant, and all other concrete evidence that I was once a kid are nothing but paper.

So here is how I was actually born. I was born 12 months ago in an apartment that I rented the day before my birth. My purpose is for the repetitive 9-5 job to figuratively beat me to death until I am nothing but a puddle of metaphorical blood.

I am not suffering a physical beatdown, but I am still getting my ass kicked in a more figurative way. Oh shit, I think I am being punished.

3

That’s exactly why I do not follow any religion. A lot of the people attending religious services are like that. Not all but some. Those I’ve known, I lived among them. It’s horrible what some human beings do to defenseless animals. It’s gut wrenching actually.

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Those boys probably weren’t there by choice. A lot of kids growing up treat it as a shelf religion. They just do it because ma and pa says so. When they become adults, I doubt they’ll go to church as much if they’re both out killing animals. Some kids grow up and continue religious activities, and then there are those that don’t. The thing about religion is that it doesn’t teach nor does it motivate kids to be moral.

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even if the kids weren’t there by choice, I’m pretty sure my neighbor is because he was significantly older than me.

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We are in late-stage, catabolic capitalism. Everything now is geared towards keeping people in a shambolic state of obedient labor, with various implicit assumptions such as you should be grateful for whatever little you get.

Even my field, software development, is seeing a concerted attempt to transform tech workers from highly skilled and valued (= well paid) to dime-a-dozen, “be careful or we’ll replace you with a chatbot” production workers. That this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem space doesn’t matter. These fuckers have dollar signs in their eyes and they are greedy and indifferent to things like happiness, quality, loyalty, respect or sustainability. It won’t end well.

These days if you’re a W2 tech worker (not a contractor) you can often expect to submit a thousand resumes to get a handful of responses, many of which are unserious and/or involve a half dozen interviews and doing some free sample work, etc. Which is why I’m not one of those. But I’m very lucky to have an established specialist reputation where I can crank out > 40 hours a week of billable time and the client is happy I’m on board. Not coincidentally, it is almost certainly my final gig before full retirement.

When I was in my 20s I had some of those 9 to 5 slogs but it was still an era where one could in theory at least “pay your dues” and move up from there. There isn’t enough spare luck in the system for that anymore. I am honestly not sure what I’d do differently now. You’re in a vulnerable place, Natasha, because you don’t yet have full confidence in your own worth, don’t know yourself as well as you will later, aren’t as good a judge of people as you will eventually be. So for that and other reasons you accept more mistreatment than you should or arguably have to. If there’s one thing I would change about my past work history it would be to have a clearer understanding in my bones that employers need me more than I need them ultimately. I would not have let them get away with as much. But then again, it was not the hateful hellscape of the present day, either, and I had a lot of built-in privilege I was equally clueless about (white, cishet, male, middle class, yadda-yadda – I could at least appear to conform and thus skate by).

I would I guess look more critically at the system, unapologetically exploit its weaknesses for my own benefit, have zero illusions about the “vision” or “mission statement” of the org, ruthlessly move to positions that would be even marginally better for me, that sort of thing. Just generally be more of a mercenary. All things I lacked the courage and perspective to do back in the day unfortunately. What saved me was a propensity for a skill that could buy my way out. Is is possible you have a super power of your own that you’re not fully exploiting? If so, start exploiting, lol. All I know is that you have agency, you just have to find it.

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Anyone that would kill a kitty cat is basically a piece of shit IMO.

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8

When I was like 4 I would mistreat a cat we had (scream at it, chase it, throw gravel at it, etc). Later I learned to love cats but that cat never forgave me. I learned a lot from that cat.

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anyone who would kill anyone too

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I agree. And children. Any living being actually.

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Where do you draw the line? Because we ALL are responsible for killing living beings.

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I don’t have an answer for that. For me even killing a bug in my house gives me pause.

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Well, it’s all on a spectrum. You eat. You have an immune system. If you drive, there go those bugs.

I’m not saying this to be contrary, rather to point out that causing the death of another living entity is not necessarily bad. If one considers motive, then one can better determine if the action was reasonable or viscous. (There’s also a basket for responsibility based on not paying attention.)

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I think the casual killing of anything makes an arguable contribution to the notion that life is cheap and humans as apex predators need have no concern for any suffering caused by that cheapening.

On the other hand I have no qualms swatting mosquitos or luring them to death en masse in a bug zapper – even as I go out in the freezing cold every other day to add seed to the bird feeder in the back yard because I feel bad for critters that have to exist in freezing cold day and night.

“I contain multitudes”, as the saying goes.

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Cruelty toward, or murder of, an animal during childhood is a BIG red flag to criminologists. It’s a well known pointer to a future career as a serial killer.

Failure of your parents to report such incidents to law enforcement are also a serious red flag. I would regard the environment you describe above as utterly pathological.

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For me even killing a bug in my house gives me pause.

Goodness, you are soft. I killed a boar during a hunting trip with a friend. You could bet your ass I unknowingly stepped on insects during that time, too. You probably eat the same pork I consume, except you buy yours from a supermarket, instead of occasionally hunting for it, during legally appropriate seasons

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(Not directed at me, but I think I’d answer anyway, as I have some opinions here.)

What is this, a pissing contest? :grimacing:

While I do love my meat, I would rather let the professionals do the actual killing of the animals. In breeding animals for food, I believe we have a responsibility for their welfare while they are alive, as well as in the killing process. They should not be exposed to undue stress. In line with this, I now only buy meat directly from local farmers who raise cattle that are outdoors eating grass, where the calves can stay with their mothers until it is time for slaughter, and where pigs have a large outdoors area where they can do the thing they like best, namely to dig around in the earth and the dirt to find food. Yes, this is more area and resource intensive, and yes it means the meat is more expensive. But in doing this, we gain two important things: animal welfare, and a superior quality on the meat. To me this is a moral issue, so I’d rather pay more for meat from animals that lived a happy life and whose meat has superior quality, and then cut down on my total meat consumption, than to buy lots of cheap meat from crowded meat factories. My quality of life has not decreased by reducing my meat intake and increasing my vegetable intake.

I am quite aware that this kind of farming is not sustainable on a global scale. However, I believe moral issues[1] demand that we should prioritise animal welfare higher instead of maximising the profit at all cost, especially when it comes to the health and welfare of the animals. In the grand scheme of things, cutting down on food waste would be one of several possible ways to start decreasing the total meat demand so it is possible to give farm animals better living conditions. Yes, USA, I’m looking at you, with your enormous and oversized restaurant portion sizes where a lot of the food goes to waste. There are also issues here and elsewhere that should be addressed.

As far as hunting goes, I don’t have any objections as long as it is sustainable and the meat is actually used for food in a sensible way, and that the killing is not done for “sports”. What is the “sport” in killing an animal with a modern hunting rifle, anyway? And as for me, I prefer “hunting” with a camera and a telephoto lens. It gives me more pleasure to observe the animals in their natural habitat than to think “meat!” whenever I observe one. If the above makes me “soft”, so be it. I’ll gladly be the soft guy.

  1. Yes, they are subjective ↩︎

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18

I struggle with this one, as of course one should with moral dichotomies. I eat meat, even though I became a vegetarian for a few years when I was younger I went back, I fished and hunted when I was younger, but don’t now, would never tell others how they should behave, but obviously there is a limit, I would abhor hunting for fun, I can’t call it sport sorry, though I understand it is innate in us as a species, but then so are many things we would not accept unchallenged. Can’t say killing insects in the house or anywhere troubles me too much, but I wouldn’t do it for the sake of it obviously. I try to trap spiders and throw them out, as they eat insects and flies that would be a real nuisance in summer.

I don’t condemn others, nor would I describe them as soft, my sister lost one of her cats, and she was inconsolable in a way I would not be at the loss of a pet, I guess we are all different.

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We are indeed. Some people are very empathic and “porous” and feel deeply in ways I am grateful not to be burdened with. At the other exterme, there are people who feel nothing, like the ICE fuckwits that murdered that woman in Minneapolis a couple of days ago, then prevented a doctor from tending to her, and blocked emergency services as well. I believe it’s called “sociopathy” which results in a thing called “cruelty”.

We do as a species seem to be saddled with a propensity to try to define “normalcy” and then impose it on those around us. Probably a vestige of primal identification mechanisms for determining who is friend or foe, trustworthy or not. The sad thing is that as civil society falls down around us, where the assumption of deference and kindness no longer holds, we will have to go back to relying on our brain stems like that.