To be fair, all the stuff in your life, that you are experiencing firsthand, is always going to be way stronger than a story you read about in the news.
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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Unpopular Opinion
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There are 7 billion people right now. About 50m die every day. If you are not apathetic to others suffering then you will not be able to function as a human being.
I have space to recognize their existence and not be broken by it.
Well it is just a story to you. I mean seriously, unless you experience it firsthand it's just a story. No matter how convincing, or what respected authority is telling you about it, or how moving the video is. It's still just a story, a bunch of words and pictures. And that's always way less compelling than your actual first-hand-experience life.
It's always easier to find someone else below you that can be blamed rather than fix the problem.
Sometimes the people themselves are the problem, and they don't want to be or are resistant to being fixed. Personally, I'm very apathetic to self-inflicted suffering when the person inflicting it on themselves isn't open to changing the behavior that's causing it.
I guess that makes me an asshole.
My sister is a drug abusing, money stealing, whore. I use all those words correctly as I mean them literally and so would she. She finds places to live by sleeping with people and will rob people for food. But she would rather be on the streets than live with me but without her drugs.
I will still always be there for her when or if she changes her mind and wants to get better. I don't involve myself with her troubles because I don't have to, and I don't chastise her needlessly for her actions and inactions cause she is likely aware of them at this point.
I can't fix her problem for her but I don't refuse the option to.
I live every day knowing in the back of my mind what she is going through and I will always care cause I hope she gets out of it. Her inability to solve the problem doesn't make me care any less or more likely to stop trying if given a chance to fix the problem.
Not every problem is immediately solvable and sometimes the best we can do is keep moving forward but it shouldn't change how we care about others. Even those that raped me I don't treat different I just don't interact with them. They are responsible for their own problems that doesn't mean I cheer for their falls.
They are responsible for their own problems that doesn’t mean I cheer for their falls.
Being apathetic towards someone's suffering doesn't mean I'm cheering for it, that's just psychopathic. However, I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about your sister's situation. If she needed help (and would accept it), that'd be different, but it sounds like she won't. I'm sorry to hear about her situation, though.
That said, if she was my sister, rather than a random stranger, I'd be a lot more invested, so I can empathize with your situation, wanting to help her but being unable to reasonably do so.
I also won't claim I don't experience schadenfreude when I read an article about someone who (for instance) voted against their self-interests being negatively affected by the result of that action, but I'd still prefer that nobody was put into that situation in the first place.
Yeah that schadenfreude and specifically that quote of saying specifically about voting. That smug apathy where you giggle at other people's misfortune because they might have had it coming is the one that horrified me and I think is the unpopular opinion I have.
No. That's gross. It makes you seem dishonest.
If a person gets pushback and punishment for what they have done that's fine but people just living a life where they generally get hurt and it's excused away as a location or ideology that makes it ok to point and giggle? An actual after the fact giggle is fine but this is searching for it and self serving. I just think it paints people ugly.
That smug apathy where you giggle at other people’s misfortune because they might have had it coming is the one that horrified me and I think is the unpopular opinion I have.
Ah, got it, I misunderstood what you were saying initially, I think.
I certainly don't giggle at other peoples' misfortune... but in the voting instance, I certainly don't feel bad for them.
Ok. I'm an asshole.