I ticked all the boxes in high school. Ironic-but-not-really fascist, incel, anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, pick a reaction, really. Now I’m happily married, father, Kinsey-1, reading theory, with growing class consciousness and looking to build solidarity with those people that a worse version of myself once dismissed as lesser or ungodly. It took leaving home, developing positive and loving male-male friendships, and being told that I was good enough and worth love irrespective of my accomplishments for me to start to develop the capacity to love others in the same way. Those who have traveled a similar path, what did it take for you?
I just needed someone to give me permission to turn my "notions" into principles. Notions like no one should starve in a world of abundance. Or that America has no right to invade and dictate to other nations. Or that individuals should not be able to privately own the natural world. I needed to know there were people out there who didn't just pay lip service to those ideas. Once I realized I'm actually correct and it's not that I "don't understand how the world works," everything changed