alright, i'm gonna try this. i'll start with writing about my relationship to "selfishness" and we'll see where it goes from there https://twitter.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1249936654682316801

the first thing that comes up is a memory of an argument i had with my senior-year-of-college gf where she called me selfish, and it somehow lodged in me very deeply. i flashed through memories of interactions we'd had where i did something that could be called selfish

the worst was a conversation where she wanted to open up to me about something but asked me to keep it a secret and i said i refused to do that. i was and am pretty sure it was about sexual assault and i had some kind of ridiculous idea that i might need to, like...

...tell mental health services or something about it if necessary, in order to "rescue" her. i don't really understand why this felt like the right call at the time and it's completely the opposite of what i'd do now. agh. fuck. i hate remembering that i used to be such an IDIOT

it hurts a surprising amount in my chest to remember this. that argument broke my ability to believe i was a good person and i'm not sure i've ever gotten it back really. i spent years afterwards being really fucked up about that breakup and that one argument was a big reason

i remember there were times the rest of that year where i tried to train myself to be less selfish. i would go on the subway and look at the people around me and sort of try to force myself to care about them. in retrospect i was trying to do metta without having heard of it