Drowning

Have you ever been in a sea of people and found yourself drowning?  Sitting in a crowded room, surrounded by people laughing and talking and having a good time, and found yourself falling through the cracks, losing yourself in the midst of the people?

It's like the world is rushing around you, and everyone is moving forward with their lives, doing great and wonderful things, and you're the island in the middle.  That small, unmoving piece of land that has nowhere to go.  You're rooted in your disconnect from other people.  Stranded in your isolation.

And it is worst, perhaps, when you know precisely why you can't become one with the water and rush alongside the rest of the world.  I've heard it said that it takes courage to stay true to yourself.  Or something equally sappy.  But the thing is, it doesn't take courage at all.  It takes stubbornness, it takes arrogance, and sometimes it even takes an awful lot of pride.  But definitely not courage.

Social isolation, and I think I can speak from quite a bit of experience here, is not always the miserable reality that people make it out to be.  It doesn't always consist of wishing you could be like everyone else.  It certainly doesn't involve wanting to be liked by the people who meander around you every single day.  What it does involve, however, is a lot of solitude.  And with solitude come two things: reflection and destruction.  Or maybe that's just how it always was for me.  Because after a while, there's nothing more to reflect on, and because there's nothing to be created, the only choice is to destroy everything and anything.

But one thing said about isolation is definitely true.  The loneliness.  Because even the most self-sufficient individuals find themselves wanting company sometimes.  And past a certain stage, this loneliness is not a loneliness of wanting to be accepted, but a loneliness of not having people that one can accept.

I used to find my upbringing wanting, because the values I was raised with are so atypical for this country.  But with time, I learned to accept it, and even be thankful for it.  I was never taught to seek approval, to alter myself to make a good impression.  I was raised to do things for myself, to not allow myself to be changed for other people's benefits unless it was also in my best interest.  And that is largely how I wound up on the outskirts of standard social groups.

I do not have (and never have had) opinions on designer clothing or popular sporting events.  I do not attend events that I am not interested in or partake in activities that bother me simply for the sake of being accepted.  So here I am, a lonely island in the midst of this society.  And I do not find myself wanting to be like the people who surround me, but I only wish that there were more people who I could connect with.  Who weren't so shallow as to be defined by the opinions of others.

This has been, of course, a terribly selfish post, but this is where my thoughts are lately.  This is where my solitary reflections lead me to.  I do hope that I will meet more interesting people in the near future, though.