[currency]

>changing people is so surprisingly hard—no matter how much you focus on the person in front of you, you’ll never appreciate the million tiny influences that made them who they are and that keep them that way. If you really want to make someone different, you might have to change the TV they watch, the music they listen to, the things they learn in school, the friends they hang out with, the role models they look up to, etc.

I'm a white guy who grew up in rural Pennsylvania in the 60s and 70s, so you can imagine what my implicit biases are like pretty reliably. What helps me get away from that is access to social media sites like X, reddit, and tumblr, where I follow people who are as different from me as possible. I have updated my influences. I listen. I pay attention to my internal dialogue and reactions and try to challenge myself.

>and if you do all that, congratulations, you’ve started what we call a cult.

Right. It's one thing to open myself to worlds I'm not aware of. It's something completely different to try to control what someone else experiences.

Another way of saying that is—as an atheist, I don't find religions interesting or useful. But I know that I'll never be able to sell atheism to anyone if their religion is a deeply meaningful part of their worldview and identity. Any attempt to do so has to start by destroying that world and that identity, and that kind of violence is anathema to anyone with the smallest bit of empathy. We are made of our influences and this essay covers that well.

It's a great essay that covers so much more than smoking (or drugs). Thanks for the link.