I have spent the better part of my life outside.,
I don’t mean “outdoors.”
I mean outside.
By that distinction, I mean something very different.
By “outdoors,” I mean out in elements.
By “outside,” I mean something that one might call detachment, but some might call alienation or ostracism.
I never really fit in well. I grew up in a liberal middle class household in one of the 100 poorest counties in America.
I have never known hunger or what it’s like to have parents who are addicted to drugs or Jesus Christ.
But I grew up among people who did.
And at that level, I was always going to play the role of the outsider. It was almost predestined.
I am not a redneck.
There, I said it.
Some people hold that term with pride, but I couldn’t be one if I tried.
I don’t understand a lot of the culture in which I grew up. I don’t get stock car racing, but then, I don’t get football or anything else people watch on TV that involves a ball and people running around.
I suppose that it would be okay to be a bit of a solitary eccentric, but the simple fact is that I am human.
All humans have evolved as social animals, and never really being able to connect with those nearest to me has always made somewhat less comfortable in my own existence than I ought to be.
It is certainly true that we should not live solely for the validation of others, but at some point, there must be a connection.
I feel like I’ve spent my whole life looking into the fog. I see little hints of what it means to belong, but I never see it fully.
Some days, this makes me sad.
There is no other way to describe it.
Sadness.
It’s not melancholia or depression, though I’m sure the psychiatric profession would disagree with my nomenclature.
I just know that I have spent my whole life trying to be normal.
But I don’t feel normal.
At the deepest level, I am not comfortable with who I am.
When I come to this space to write a few words and then cast my thoughts into the sea of cyberspace, I am actually somewhat surprised that people read it.
Yes, even now.
I come here to fix to my problems. I come to bury my sadness. I play around with the little factoids that my brain has accumulated over the years. I try to organize them into coherent theses.
But I also come to escape.
I come to escape a world where I feel both alienated and alone.
I come to escape a self that is never comfortable being.
I come to pay homage to old dogs that made the darkest years of my childhood bearable, and I come to pay homage to my family who always loved me.
But I don’t know what to do now.
It’s not that I’ve run out of ideas.
It’s that I’ve run out of me.
I know that at some point this venture will have to move to another level, or it will soon become stagnant, then putrid, and then decayed.
I don’t know what to do now.
My engine is idling.
And I feel so numb.
“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.” – Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) Perhaps you are just an ember now (or feel like it) but don’t fret. The flame is just a breath of a breeze away.
Welcome to the club…
Some of us are outside despite our upbringing… I grew up in a very expensive area of the country and I have always felt outside. I do a tremendous amount of volunteer work to compensate for my feelings of disconnection… any time someone says thank you, it makes my detachment more tolerable. My dogs and the out doors help a lot too.
This is not an unusual feeling. And of course you have not “run out of you”. Most solitary people experience a sense of disconnection from time to time.
I`m not sure how important social validation is. For reasons I will not bore you with, I have been fairly solitary for a long time, and by now any feelings of disconnection have morphed into an intermittent vague wonder as to what the herd is mooing about now.
I sense that you are a strong individualist, and will cope with this as you come to realise your own potential – OMG that sounds very pompous!.
Never let anyone imply that you are inferior because you don`t fit their social standards.
And always have dogs!
Elizabeth
Welcome to the club.
Pretty much the only thing you can do is be a vagabond until you find a place or person or people you have connections with.
People can be so cold
They’ll hurt you, and desert you
They’ll take your soul if you let them, but don’t you let them…
Yeah, ditto about the club.
Scottie man, it’s hard to fit in. I can’t tell you how to solve the problem, because I’m 53, and I haven’t done it yet. Even when I “join” something, I always feel detached and outside—felt that way as long as I can remember. If you read anything about souls, some people say that wild animals have a group, or species, soul. They’re all basically the same animal. Some achieve individual status by associating with humans. I often think it’s the same with humans. Sounds elitist, but so many people are exactly the same. They all want the same things. They follow religion or current thought blindly and never question or think. Breaking away takes you higher up the evolutionary ladder, but it also, by its very nature, isolates you.
At least now we have the internet, where we can find a few like-minded souls. When I was your age, I had nothing.
Hang in there, buddy.
The hardest thing to realise is that even for people who are generally accepted in mainstream culture, they are ultimately alone as well, and equally as alienated, and equally as unhappy (if not moreso). It takes a conscious effort to gain perspective on your life, to use empathy to realise that minor inconveniences likely have nothing to do with you, and to put down the urge to try and read others’ minds.
It’s only when you can accept that your only happiness will be found from within you that you’ll ever start to achieve it.
I learned the fast and hard way – if I hadn’t, I would’ve been even crazier than I am now.
Happiness is often a conscious decision. It doesn’t always work at the first try, but before you can get there, you have to decide you’re going to go.
One of the reasons we have dogs, is to be with a being that is direct, honest, unspoiled by ambition or “beliefs”; a being that appreciates the moment in full dimension, and doesn’t fuss about either past or future.
How amazing that Dog has chosen to be with Humankind, who are so different.
OMG Don’t give up your blog now! I only discovered it a short while ago and I rely on it for good up to date info. You may be an outsider but you are a bloody useful one!
Scottie,
Just by being yourself (and being true to yourself), you are bringing happiness to thousands of people. The next adventure is always just around the corner or over that next hill. Take a step back, rest a bit, and then go looking for that next adventure. Life is long, but it’s also so short. Keep evolving :-).
Can empathize.
The phrase ‘lone wolf’ comes to mind. I wonder if other social animal species have individuals who prefer to stay on the margins, or away from the pack.
I know very few people in dogs who are not in some way two standard deviations away from the mean. It seems to come with the territory and is part of the self-selection community.
You should do chats again because those were fun.
Thought I was the only one.
When dogs are judged for ” conformation” the objective is not finding the dogs that all look alike,but rather finding the one with the most virtue in light of the standard. The same with people. How boring it would be if we all agreed o r were all the same. The delight comes with those who see things a little different, who let their loves give them light.
And that’ s where people who dlight in their dogs are a joy. After all they speak an inter-species language and that is special.
I feel, uncomfortably, that I know where you are coming from. We are all different and not everyone has the natural ability to be highly gregarious all the time. In those happy days when I was actively involved with various hobbies it was much easier to make friends than it is now that I’m an old man. My wife has been much better at sustaining friendships. We moved to a new village and she joined the womens institute, a new theatre opened and she became an usher (getting free tickets) then the university of the third age started up nearby and she joined that. Mary is always on the phone or emailing to old and new friends alike and often visiting and going on various trips. I wish I could be more like her but at least I’m grateful to be the one who is privileged to exchange pillow talk with her every night. And then there are the lovely dogs, and that helps us through, doesn’t it.
As well as our personal early experiences shaping us, I think some of us are born with an inner sadness as our basic disposition. No matter what we do in life, it’s always waiting just below the surface to torture us.
Hang in there Scotty. It may take a few more years, but you will eventually become comfortable with who you are. Or at least hit 40 and not actually give a flying shit any more because you’ve met enough people to realize that everybody suffers on the inside to some extent. In the end, we’re all on the Titanic waltzing to the band.
How many times do I have to tell you to move to Oregon?
Your people… they live here.