Unity and Division in anticlimatic

Though not a pariah by any stretch, there’s never been a time or place that I’ve fit in. Prior to puberty, perhaps, but nowhere in my adult life have I felt a strong sense of belonging with any particular community. Even my own family, which comes somewhat close, has always been separate in collective ways that I have not.

What this has amounted to is a sense of aloneness. Even when I am with people, even people I share love with, that feeling is there. We’re disconnected. Separate minded, separate bodied. And it is from this sad, somewhat cold place, that an eye for commonality- universality- between human beings, arises. It’s like I need to find every thread that binds humanity together, so that I may grab hold of them myself and escape this feeling of isolation. I am ever drawn to things that connect people- things we have in common- in a celebratory light. Sharing things with people is my shortest path to joy.

I believe I know a number of people who suffer from the opposite. People who fit in just fine, perhaps too well- perhaps deliberately just for the sake of pride, or office-politics. Regardless of the reason, they seek a distance and a separation more than anything unifying. They see all the aspects of themselves they find disgusting in others, and they want to get away from it- to pick it apart from afar- to corrode it like battery acid.

Although I understand where they are coming from, I do prefer my own approach- and lament that we outsiders are not high enough in numbers to find and support one another in our quests to stop feeling alone by way of celebrating commonalities. Though were we anything but the minority, by function of form alone, we would cease to be all together- and join the ranks of the normies.