Increasingly realizing that like, it didn’t take in the sense that I’m not Catholic, but being taken to Mass every week to hear stories of this smartass kid who snuck away from his parents for the purpose of telling his elders they were wrong and grew up into a guy who walked around proclaiming a new morality where everyone should drop all attachments including and especially family and love the people who hurt them and ignore the existing order and kept this up even though he knew they were gonna kill him for it and made his mother cry and in conclusion it was the best thing anyone’s ever done

And the meta- aspect of looking around and realizing how much institution and structure and culture and history was leveraged out from those stories

Was a HUGE influence

(>in b4 “o so you think ur like jesus?” Yes! He’s the Western culture hero, you’re supposed to, that’s the point!)