So I watched the above video, and this came spilling out of me :

I agree with all of these. I would add things like the Cassandra effect. We can see the future (in a non-mystical way) and understand how things work on an extremely deep level, and that puts us in the position of trying to warn people of obstacles they don’t even understand. Remember, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man’s insane.

Another one that I have come across is not anticipating the effect of my deep cynicism on others. My sharp and brutally honesty insights into things are poison for the more idealistic among us, and I try to take that into account but it’s very difficult for me. My mind is hyper focused on accuracy and clarity, and for most people, that makes me emotionally dangerous. Dammit.

I don’t want to hurt anybody, especially in casual conversation. But this machine-like mind of mine knows no pity.

Finally, and perhaps the worst of the bunch, is that the smoothly efficient detachment we cultivate is very good for seeing the big picture and understanding systems but it’s absolutely terrible emotionally.

I often feel like there is an invisible barrier between me and others and it keeps me from truly being “with” people and enforces a limit to intimacy that can be quite harsh for me and for others.

And I know there is something wrong with me on that front. I know that this little robot has a broken antenna and just can’t pick up the same signals of warmth and companionship that keep other humans going.

Instead, I have a an accurate and precise inner world filled with the light that provides illumination but no warmth.

And I long to come in from the cold.

Well that took a turn for the maudlin.

It’s mainly that last section I want to address here today. The first two points, about the Cassandra Effect and cynicism, are valid enough.

I have often felt like a doomed soothsayer and whilst I don’t actually think of myself as a cynic, I sure as hell come off that way to others.

I’m not a cynic. I’m a realist. But then again, that’s what we all say.

But no, I mostly want to talk about this glass wall I live behind and how it traps me in this hellish world of icy abstraction locked deep within my soul.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t lonely. I am pretty sure it started at least as early as my first day of school, but it might have started as early as the rape.

I don’t remember a lot of the time between when my best friends Trish and Janet went to school (they were a year older than me) and when I went to school.

I would really like to know if my babysitter Betty noticed a change in me after I was raped. That experience shattered me.

I am sure I became far more brittle and anxious and sad. Gone was the warm precocious little charmer she knew, to replaced by… well.. me.

Hardly and upgrade.

Anyhow, point is, I have been lonely all my life except for the years before Trish and Janet went to school and my two years of UPEI.

Don’t take that the wrong way, Joe, Julian, and Felicity. You are precious beyond words to me and without you I would probably be crazy and homeless in the DTES by now.

The fact that I am still lonely deep inside has nothing to do with anything that is wrong with you and everything to do with just how harsh the conditions are inside of me.

And like I said in the quoted section above, I truly wish I could come in from the cold.

But I suppose that would mean sacrificing my precious objectivity and reason and all these high powered perceptions of mine.

And that can’t happen until I somehow trust the world enough to le down my guard.

And I can’t see that happening any time soon.

More after the break.

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On forever retracting

Responding to stress by retreating from reality is very maladaptive.

The situations in which that is an effective response are extremely rare.

Most of the time, you are much better off going in the opposite direction and increasing your focus on what is happening at the moment.

In modern brain science terms, that means switching from the slow circuit (higher brain functions, contemplation) to the fast circuit (instinct, rapid decision making).

But that’s not how the IN in INTJ (Introverted iNtuition) works. My mind focuses inward to solve problems. I have unintentionally focused all my development into optimizing those slow circuit functions.

Which is great for school and terrible for life.

I have overspecialized. I have too much of a good thing. WAY too much.

That’s how I ended up with this amazing brain but nowhere near enough life force to get it to somewhere where its powers could do some good for itself and others.

At times, it almost seems like this magnificent mind of mine is less an asset and more like a greedy parasite gorging itself on all my resources and leaving only the absolute minimum required to keep the rest of me alive.

Joke’s on it (and me). It would be far better fed and exercised if it would just let me have the energy and motivation to get myself some kind of place in life.

Preferably some kind of real job, but hell, I would be happy just having a blog popular enough to have a lively comments section.

Give me a community to run of people who actually read what I write and who understand what I am talking about, and I would be a very happy man.

But no, this massive computational engine of mine takes up too much room and sucks up too much of the oxygen to allow for that.

Keeps me on a short fucking leash. One so short that it chokes the life out of me if I try to move one centimeter further away from my teeny tiny comfort zone.

And I am so royally sick of it. It’s so unfair. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, with incredible gifts I would love to share with the world for fun and profit, and yet I languish behind the walls of a prison of my own devising.

I desperately want to feel the warmth of this wild and wonderful world. I want to feel alive and inspired and open and free. I want to find joy in life instead of having to settle for mere survival.

I am so very very tired of this frozen existence. I’m ready to melt.

And once the melting ice brings on the flood and everything impermanent has washed away and the waters have receded, I will search the shoreline for whatever parts of me survived, and piece them together to make a brand new me.

One that has been washed clean by the river of tears and therefore finally knows who he really is, without all the icy delusions that were holding him back.

I don’t know who I will be then.

But I look forward to meeting him.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.