That my dad cared about or respected me. After a family dinner, my wife asked me if he always talked about me like that and it just kind of clicked. Things like telling my kid, “If you play too many video games, they’ll melt your brain like your dad” or “why would anyone pay you that much” when I told them that I broke a six figure salary. She made me realize that this wasn’t normal and I didn’t have to sit there and listen to it just because of who he is.

I haven’t spoken to him or really any of my side of the family in almost two years now. Good riddance.

Being Mormon.

They always told us that people who gave us anti-mormon literature just made stuff up and it was Satan’s way of tempting us. They said to never take any anti-mormon literature and if someone did give it to you then to throw it away without reading.

But at the same time they taught us that the Mormon church was the true church. And they also taught us truth was absolute. Well, i figured if truth is absolute, and if the church was THE true church then it would be able to withstand any criticism. So i read anti mormon literature, like the CES letter. From there i did my own research about various things and found that the Mormon church made up a lot of stuff and did lots of gaslighting.

There was some specific issues that i also had been struggling with, like their treatment of women, gays, and black men/women. That also helped push me to want to make sure if the Mormon church was really true. And it wasn’t. Now i can love my friends unconditionally.

For the longest time I was under the impression that everybody has unlimited potential, that you can essentially take a homeless junkie of the streets send them through college, give then a job and have a functioning intelligent person come out at the end. That is absolutely not true. based on my own experience we all have limits and glass ceilings. Yes, we all live on the same clock, but some of us have to deal with so much behind the scenes just to stay afloat while others can breeze through life like its nothing. There are people who are incredibly academically gifted but absolutely inept in personal or household stuff, some people are thick as a rock but incredibly charming, etc. We all have our strengths and weaknesses but sometimes of course all the marbles roll into the right holes and you get somebody who’s good at everything they touch and are almost doomed to success.

There are just things that I will never able to grasp, or habits that I will never able to form because I tried my whole life and it never worked out. I consider myself as a fairly baseline dude, so its safe to say that if I have these experiences the majority of people will have them as well.

As a non American who has never been to the US, but grew up well within its sphere of cultural influence.

I thought that about half of the population was black, maybe 40% minimum. I was surprised to learn that it was just above 10% in reality.

That if you weren’t part of “our” religion (my family’s religion, Catholic), you were basically living your life wrong and were an awful person. When I went to college I met people who believed different things, including in nothing, and I realized they were not, in fact, terrible, almost subhuman, people. I quickly changed for the better and that’s one of the best things to ever happen to me. It’s amazing how accepting you can be when you just accept people for who they are

I thought I’d live a comfortable stable life pursuing the sciences for the sake of knowledge. I learned in the past year or two through studying political economy and climate science that this is pretty unlikely. These days idk what to do. I want to do something more useful, I want to help people but it all feels quite hopeless. It often feels like revolution is the only option but I fear it may even be too late for that. We are already past the point where hundreds of millions will die and be displaced. We are already past the point of inevitable severe famine and societal collapse in many places. We aren’t even accomplishing damage control and it feels like most people don’t even dare acknowledge it.

I was certain that a gander was a group of geese. Why? Because apparently everybody who has ever used the phrase “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” around me was using it wrong. I just learned this week that a gander is a male goose. So based on misuse, I thought that the phrase meant that what’s beneficial for one is beneficial for the greater group, but what it really means is that what’s acceptable in the case for one should be equally acceptable for others in the same situation.

I’m nearly 36 and I would say that I’m smarter than most people, but this was a gaping hole in my knowledge that was pretty damn humbling to learn of and correct.

Rinsing after brushing teeth. The fluoride in the toothpaste should stay on your teeth for a while to be effective. So you should floss, then brush, and wait to rinse or not rinse

The longest was probably the vegetarian → vegan pipeline.
My position was that ‘employment’ of animals was humanely possible, if you genuinely treated them like you’d want to be treated.

It was until I read how cows need to basically be kept continuously pregnant, that I realized there was just no way.
I believe, you could have a bite of cheese every year or so, if we don’t do forceful impregnation, but at that point, why even bother?

I used to be kind of low level anti-pharmaceuticals. Nothing too dramatic (never antivax), but definitely quietly on the side of other forms of interventions of any kind being preferable over drugs.

I still acknowledge that in many instances other interventions can be better, but in a lot of cases a pharmaceutical intervention is the quickest, most effective and safest way for people to deal with whatever health or mental health conditions they have. And also lots of drugs are perfectly safe over the long term.

I think I was raised with a lot of ideas around purity, but when I came out as trans is when that started to change in a big way.

I thought Brussels sprouts were baby cabbages until I was 28 and I finally saw them still attached to the stalk.

Shame about sex stuff, because of growing up in a Christian household. Took me until my 20s before I was comfortable with… everything.

Now I have over a grand in Bad Dragon stuff and another grand in other fun things and I’m basically asexual so I rarely use anything. BUT WHEN I DO… we get WEIRD about it.

Cocoa has an “a” at the end of it. I was in college and was like, “haha, they spelled it weird.” Nope, just a dumbass.

A BLT is literally just bacon, lettuce, and tomato. I thought it was just the toppings on the base meat (like how a pepperoni pizza inculdes bread, sauce, etc.). I don’t like bacon or raw tomato, so I never had one.

There is no bone in the penis. I swore there was one until I made it to 3D molding and, as we were going over different body parts and their movement, I asked my male friend “Hey, where’s the penis bone/muscle.” He looked at me like I had two heads. I assumed it could do tricks, like waving and stuff. 🤷🏿‍♀️

The word quay. I’m still mad about that haha

Opening bananas.

Watch a nature documentary showing me a monkey knew better.