Everyone has a villain origin story
The more I get through life, the more I realize you really do no know what people are going through and those things shape them more than we know.
Hey there,
I’ve consistently held on to the idea that people are a summation of their life experiences. I’ve probably touched on it a few times over the years, even in this newsletter. But the more I grow and interact with people, the more I realize just how valid it is.
We all know it’s true. We just don’t use it as much as we should. We walk into too many conversations or rooms without investigating the depth behind what we are seeing right in front of our faces.
Fortunately, I’m not most people. I think my career in design impresses on me a responsibility to read meaning into things people say or to step into a room and analyze things more than the average Joe.
As critical as I tend to think I am, I think there are people that are even more critical. A friend of mine would replay situations he doesn’t trust in his head and exaggerate what it means till he’s able to come to some made up but often accurate estimation of what it meant.
“I think he does it too much but I can’t argue with his sniffing out bullshit results“
How this applies in your life
When you meet someone, the way they see you, the energy they bring, their ability to like or dislike you, their first reaction, their level of interest… none of it is just about that moment. It’s a function of everything they’ve lived through and how they’ve processed it.
Some people are lucky. They’ve had enough good experiences to outweigh the bad. Others carry scars. Some translate those good experiences to good character traits, others do not.
That’s why you can meet a great person who hurts you, and a “bad” person who leaves a positive mark on you. It all depends on the version of them you meet. The version their experiences have shaped and how much of it you let stick with you as you interact and interpret.
Make this mental note right now, everyone you meet, is carrying something (good or bad), that thing is influencing this conversation right now. If you can subconsciously infer what that thing is, the interaction, automatically becomes better and you can decide if this person is a hero or a villain inherently.
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Here’s a random but relevant scenario
To put this more in context for you, let’s get through a real-life story together.
Recently, I saw a picture on a friend’s WhatsApp status. She was celebrating her dad’s birthday, and among the photos ( lol, who says photos in 2026 ) was a throwback picture of her dad with another man.
That man was Mr Opa (I’m obviously changing the name cause why not) one of my secondary school teachers.
He never taught me directly. I was in the science department, he was in commercial. But everyone knew him. At least knew him enough to be sure of some details about him.
He was the typical strict teacher. Cane in hand. Constant frown. Always looked like he was waiting to catch you doing something wrong. That was his reputation through SS1 and most of SS2.
But over time, I started to notice something else. The more I saw this man the more I started to have more context on who he was behind the Mr Opa with a cane in his hand ready to “flog that nonsense out of you“.
He had a soft interior. (surprise surprise)
Some students could get through to him. They could make him laugh (I didn’t even know that was possible). There was a kind of mutual understanding there. Beneath the strictness, there was warmth and that warmth manage to shin through sometimes.
So when I saw the picture, I told my friend, “I know this man.”
She asked her dad about him, and he mentioned something that changed the entire context for me.
That man had always wanted to be a teacher. It was his dream.
I always just thought He was frustrated and hated his job. But I was wrong.
The thing we saw every day, the thing we normalized, was something he genuinely loved. Something he chose. Something people who used to know him way before he became a teacher recognized as an ambition for him.
Turned out this man really was passionate about the work and was deliberate about the impact he wanted to have in the world. Same Mr Opa ooo
But that wasn’t the only detail that gave more context into the version of him I knew. There was another detail my friend provided. One that was not a positive but a negative seed to the Mr Opa I knew.
He had lost his two sons on the same day.
No extra context. Just that.
And suddenly, everything made sense in a different way.
Every day we saw that strict, always-frowning teacher, he was carrying something heavy. And one of the ways he coped was by stepping into a space where he could still teach, guide, and shape young people.
In a way, he tried to stay close to what he lost.
Behind the tough exterior, he was someone students could trust. Someone they could go to. We just did not have context on why he was tough but warm.
It was easy to analyze him then with my childhood brain and simply see a strict teacher who delighted in resetting your mind with a cane. The dispenser of strokes whenever other teacher did not have the will to keep flogging.
Looking back now, this was a man deeply influenced by a truly and heavily traumatic life experience that no parent should have to go through. The death of his sons.
No wonder he frowned a lot, what about life could make someone smile much after such an experience.
That right there, that realization you are having that you truly don’t know what people are going through or have gone through, that’s the point of this post.
You never really know what someone is carrying. You never fully understand the context behind who they’ve become. And you should never look at people just for what you are seeing in the moment.
This is not to excuse bad behaviour, it’s just a useful tool for you in your journey to meeting and interacting with people.
I’ve even noticed that sometimes, someone can say one sentence and you can tell. You can sense what shaped it. Whether it’s trauma, love, ambition, fear, or neglect. It’s all there, in fragments.
Everyone you meet is a combination of thousands of experiences, constantly shaping how they think, act, and respond.
Including you. You are not free from this phenomenon, neither should you be so detached that you don’t introspectively review your life and what experiences are driving the frown on your face or your thoughts.
Everything you are right now is a result of what you’ve lived through.
Be intentional about what you allow to shape you and how it does.
Let the good experiences have more weight than the bad. Don’t build your worldview purely on pain or poor guidance. I’ve seen too many people carry the wrong ideas for too long, losing months or years because of something they never questioned.
You can’t control everything that happens to you.
But you can be more deliberate about what you hold on to, what you learn from, and what you let define you.
I hope you curate your experiences more intentionally and let only the hero in you shine through.
Even if you are a villain right now, recognize what your original story is and like Zuko, walk your way back to the good side and re-learn how to bend again.
Cheers and stay alive.
AI Adoption and the Actual Reality
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In summary
Everyone has the potential to be a villain, and it’s all about how they receive and internalize your life experiences.
On your journey to retrospection and self-aware, you will need to relearn why you are the way you are, give yourself grace.
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This also reminds me to give people more grace. If we all gave each other grace and acted in good faith, life would be more cutesy, less grim reaper
Your overly analytical friend is my mom😂. She is the biggest skeptic I know, takes nothing at face value..