Humans vs. Humanity

Sometimes, I have this voice screaming inside my head. Most of the time it's saying "Oh, SHUT THE FUCK UP!". Most of the time I keep it inside. I'm too politically correct for my own good. We all change. We all evolve. We'd be damned if we didn't. But I keep bumping against this resistance, this inabillity to hurt those who aren't afraid of hurting me. I've been saying this forever. When treated with disrespect, I'm still afraid to be disrespectful. I have changed so much, and maybe the main thing I've learned is to stop apologizing for being who I am. Who I am is none of your damn business. Yet it always affects me when you say I should be someone else. I should live my life a different way. Why? If you wouldn't be happy living my life, why should I be happy living yours? And isn't happiness all that counts, really? Potatoe, fucking potato. If you're that smart, should I really have to spell it out for you? Tell you the obvious? That's the thing you don't get. Being smart is being humble. Is admitting you know nothing, in the big scheme of things, is knowing you still have a lot to learn and that being open minded is more than just saying you are. I've never had any trouble putting myself in other people's shoes. In trying to understand why they were acting the way they were. Granted, I didn't always agree. But I could pretty much always see their reasons. I always liked analysing people. But not in a bad way. And I was always pissed when they couldn't "get" me. When they didn't even seem to make an effort to understand why I was acting the way I was. Worse, when (as someone told me in that ever hurtful brutally honest fashion), they "didn't want to accept" me. Now. I finally understand that I can't make them. I can't make them like me (this one I always knew), I can't make them accept me, and (newsflash!) I can't make them want to try to understand me. However, I can't stop searching for reasons to explain people's unwillingness to care. And I obviously don't mean they should dive into the other person's problems or go out of their way to try and help, I mean I just want to understand why they don't even feel the need to feel where the person is coming from. Because to me it's like a basic need.

A recent study showed that most young people lack empathy. Another study showed that when asked who would they save if a dog and a person were drowning, most people would save the dog. I believe these are related. I've spend so much time discussing this. I've been accused of not loving animals. And this is when I shoul've said "Oh, shut the fuck up!". I DO love animals. If a dog was drowning, I wouldn't stand by and laugh manically while it drowned. Of course not. I would try to save it. But if a human being was drowning right next to the dog, that would be a no-brainer. It baffles me how people can feel so little for their own species. Intrigued, I dug a little deeper and searched for answers. Someone said "well, if the person was a friend, I would save him/her. But if it was a stranger, I would save the dog, since I had no feelings towards that person.". Again, SHUT THE FUCK UP! To me, this is basic lack of empathy. Something's missing from your brain, darling. A dog is a living being, it feels pain, and joy, and all that, but it doesn't have the dreams, goals, plans that a person has. AND... If you were drowning in a lake and a (choose animal of your preference) was watching, do you think it would lift a finger (paw) to save you? Seriously? C'mon. I love my cat. I talk to her like a typical crazy cat lady. I'll be devastated when she dies. But I would never neglect a human being over her (notice that I call her a her and not a "it", that's how much I care for her). What if your sister/mother/daughter/lover died because someone else chose to save a dog instead of them? Would you still agree with their choice?
Maybe I'm wrong here. I'm not conceited to the point of thinking every one of my visions/choices/values is the universal truth. But it confuses me. It really does. And it also scares me. And it also tells me that I should stop caring for what some people say, as they certainly are the type to choose a dog over a human, and so it's not their fault they can't put theirselves in my shoes and try to understand me. It's probably just some mutated gene affecting many in my generation or something. Something is making humanity less human.