I meant this purely geographically not politically 🙄

And not the treasure trove of wisdom gathered over a longer life

This leaving fundamental questions like “who am I” and “what is my purpose” to the individual, and condemning most the vast majority to unsatisfying and lonely existence

So we hide parts of ourselves that aren’t “relevant” to this external thing, because we fear that without, we couldn’t connect to anyone

It’s like we both are looking at the same object and we pretend we’re looking at each other, but we’re not

This relegating problems to one person alone and not dysfunctional systems, this stigma around problems and not “fitting in” some rigid model

This never feeling entirely stable, entirely held, always relating to each other through a screen of some external goal or activity - this sucks

Surely being told from an early age that my feelings and my safety and my comfort don’t matter and I can’t speak up for them affected me

Like surely being forced to grow up around kids I didn’t like and who didn’t treat me well, and being forced into a rigid full-time schedule that made me feel awful for 12 years affected me. Surely developing humor and STEM acumen as a coping strategy to bury my emotions affected me.