Ahhhh….listicles…so that’s what they are called. This is literally the first time I’ve encountered this word. Finally I know. Thank you. Oh my god do I cringe when I see a listicle these days. I used to enjoy them when they first started to get popular but now just the titles induce anxiety in me. They’re so forceful these days telling you what you MUST do or what you DON’T know. It’s all like the new version of the street corner evangelist yelling at you about how you got it all wrong and are going to go to hell unless you read every single one of their points.

The other thing that would happen is that I found myself feeling like I was in a race to the finish. It became some kind of weird thing where I would be actively thinking about how soon I could get to the next point and then finally finish. This arbitrary race (against my own time I guess) really started diminishing the value of reading them altogether. I was focusing more on getting through all the points as fast as I could rather than absorbing any valuable information. I’m sure they are good for some but definitely not my cup of tea anymore.

On another note about everyone being self righteous…I think you are correct.

In fact maybe you’ve heard of it but there is an entire field of study in psychology about the above average affect of morals. Where in general most people believe that they are morally superior than the AVERAGE person — which is obviously impossible. This is so prevalent that it even holds true with prisoners. Prisoners sitting in jail and will adamantly insist that they are morally superior than the average person. Quite fascinating research.

Also holds true for intelligence, where most people believe they are more intelligent than the AVERAGE person.