Nearly every negative assumption I have about the world is rooted in stuff people literally told me.

I used to believe I was a comic villain, stupid, inept, ugly, and ridiculous in my monstrous anger, because I'd basically been told this. I used to believe by contrast that others, especially the people who were handing me tasks, were these amazing folks who had everything together and who wanted to be here, because that's what I was told. I was handed this horrible view of unquestionable authority and unsurprisingly turned out maltheistic.

And a lot of the world is about to become a total disaster - frankly I've been told that too. In this case it *is* impossible to avoid some news and given possible implications of things like the election or new covid variants, it's hard not to catastrophize.