So you basically have one of two options. Either ignore it, to keep the peace. Or get mad. I've chosen the first option because that's what my brother does. And I've had countless arguments and it's tiring and never goes anywhere and I'll be accused of ruining Christmas.

It's a control play. It's her way of telling herself "He's still my little boy." Not healthy, not desirable, not beneficial, not gonna change." Going through your shit and throwing your stuff away and tweaking your nose about every little thing is her way of reassuring herself that she's still in charge of you, that she still has dominion over your life, and that she doesn't need to focus on her own shit, live her own life, do something for herself.

One of them even had the audacity to message me trying to build up my ego saying "I'm talking to the man that made me the man I am today."

We judge ourselves by our peers and if our peers are doing worse than us, we are doing better. If you can get the friend who moved out of town who's trying to make something of himself take the shitty job you recommended to him, you are demonstrably better than that guy and don't need to feel bad about never going to college.

It's a total mess, and part of the reason I seem to have largely retreated from the hippie ideals of my youth. Things are a lot more contingent on money, education, self-discipline, and sheer effort than they are simply believing in the right ideas or telepathically sending love to others. And they called me every name in the book. Sociopath. Narcissist. Yada yada yada.

You have reframed your worldview around a more sophisticated set of inputs and outputs. In doing so, you have rejected the dogma they still accept. My father got into a shouting match with me once because I refused to say that Republicans are 100% evil by definition. The observation that traditional Republican ideas are not inherently evil, they have just been applied by opportunists to damage the country at large was utterly unacceptable to him; the original sin of Republicanism is to not be Democratic and any analysis beyond that is a betrayal of the ideas he "raised me on."

You are staying in a small town that excuses itself from growing larger by keeping you small. I know it well. There are good people there. You're even related to some. But you are of an age where they can no longer hide their deficiencies from you, nor can they mask their needs.

Most of us stop growing at some point. We don't notice until we see others who haven't. You are currently renegotiating your home: your every comment above is you going "what am I, seventeen?" as everyone around you goes "are you still seventeen?" Because if everyone can agree you're seventeen no one has to confront uncomfortable truths such as "I sell auto parts for a living, this is my life now."

It would have little effect if you were confident in your life path and future. They would have to acknowledge that you are someone new. They would pull away and become distant because ultimately, you changed and they didn't. Your relationship with your mother would become more polite and less codependent. But you're currently reevaluating your identity AND THEY ARE GOING TO HELP.