Okay, but here’s the thing: I have to wonder if I don’t sometimes nourish the same ugly impulses that this guy nakedly displays when he adds his two-bit commentary to something I wrote. I was initially upset when I saw his asinine, idiotic remarks (which effectively boil down to “ugh, go and read a book; I read books, you see, so I’m better than you”), but that insecurity dissipated when I learned that he was religious.

And I’m not sure it should. It’s an awkward one, because there isn’t one religious argument that could ever convince me (and I’d believe in my own insanity long before I ascribed visions or so-called miracles to a god), and that brings with it a kind of impulse to at least mentally condescend, even if I don’t verbalise it. But that dissipation of distress presumably came from a sense of intellectual superiority, and while I certainly like being happy, I also want to be happy for the right reasons (like the superior feeling gleaned from learning that he’s reductive and inaccurate about feminism, or seems to really favour condescension as a conversational tactic).

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m at a point where even the worst kinds of people make me want to do better - not because any so-called advice they peddle is in any way illuminating, but because any verbal interaction with another human being, no matter how awful, can be an opportunity for growth if you really deconstruct it.