The obvious
Having grown-up and outsider in so many ways, I eventually internalized that feeling of being different. I identified with the outcasts, the misfits, the queers. And that put me in an adversarial role with the mainstream.
That certainly has been useful in ways. It has propelled me out from my the warm comfortable places that trap so many. It has forced me to strive always upwards, outwards. And so in many ways I owe my life to my ostracization. A high price, but certainly worth it.
Over the past few years, moving so slowly at first as to go unrecognized, has been a realization that this attitude, however useful, is also alienating, isolating, and miserable when taken to an extreme. I need to seek a balance, one where I retain this part of myself but also open myself up to the fullness, the richness, of connection with the greater human collective.
This manifests itself, in the day-to-day, as a willingness to connect to people, extending the caring part of myself, and being present in each day. And I have started being these things. And what has happened, perhaps this is obvious to all those without mutant hearts, is that people generally surprise me by just how willing they are to be decent, to be good, to be their better selves when you extend yourself.
This newfound ability to connect to the whole is Wonderful. If there is anything sad about this, it is the realization that I have too long been silent and isolated. Also, that I had some of these realizations before, when I was enjoying the company of some MDMA. It occurred to me on those rolls that there is a desire, in nearly all of us, to connect, to love, and all you have to do is unlock that nascent desire and people come alive. As KMB once said, "people are what you bring out in them."
I want this change to be lasting, and that's hard work at 30 years of age.
That certainly has been useful in ways. It has propelled me out from my the warm comfortable places that trap so many. It has forced me to strive always upwards, outwards. And so in many ways I owe my life to my ostracization. A high price, but certainly worth it.
Over the past few years, moving so slowly at first as to go unrecognized, has been a realization that this attitude, however useful, is also alienating, isolating, and miserable when taken to an extreme. I need to seek a balance, one where I retain this part of myself but also open myself up to the fullness, the richness, of connection with the greater human collective.
This manifests itself, in the day-to-day, as a willingness to connect to people, extending the caring part of myself, and being present in each day. And I have started being these things. And what has happened, perhaps this is obvious to all those without mutant hearts, is that people generally surprise me by just how willing they are to be decent, to be good, to be their better selves when you extend yourself.
This newfound ability to connect to the whole is Wonderful. If there is anything sad about this, it is the realization that I have too long been silent and isolated. Also, that I had some of these realizations before, when I was enjoying the company of some MDMA. It occurred to me on those rolls that there is a desire, in nearly all of us, to connect, to love, and all you have to do is unlock that nascent desire and people come alive. As KMB once said, "people are what you bring out in them."
I want this change to be lasting, and that's hard work at 30 years of age.