brain plasticity: trauma, negative reinforcement, gratitude, love, ego

[TiktokUser]

i always saw this as a comical cope. "how ridiculous... this is human nature! the jock picks on the nerd! it's the cycle of life!" - i really thought i was winning at life for picking on some random unfortunate guy on the forum for how he looked. just fucking lol. there are a million better things i could have been doing with my time. it's only once you reach a state where you genuinely are proud of everything about yourself and content with your life that you realise that your attempts at hating really were just a projection of your own insecurities.

I agree with almost everything you said except for this part. I’ve seen plenty of situations, both related to me and not where someone who was clearly better at something would make fun of others simply because they didn’t like them, and it had nothing to do with insecurity.

I remember a kid who was terrible as a quarterback, played third or fourth string, and the first string quarterback would constantly make fun of him, both his skill level and his appearance. And it definitely wasn’t insecurity, since he had a better face, better popularity, better height, and better grades

So I’m curious why you changed your belief on this. Cause back when you were under 18, wouldn’t you agree that the people who bullied you were “better” than you in those areas and weren’t acting out of insecurity, but just trying to make you feel like shit?