Easier said than done.

It’s occurred to me lately that I have always considered myself to be both more than and less than fully human.

More than in that I have always held myself aloof, above, and apart from others of my species. I’ve felt like I could, with the heavy head and heart of a disappointed angel, judge them for their pettiness and smallmindedness and coldness of heart, and feel like I, at least, cared.

And there’s the whole intellectual superiority thing. While I have studiously and strenuously avoiding embracing any and all forms of elitism, the truth is that I am way, way smarter than most people, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and that inevitably leads me to view the average human being, well, from above, as it were.

Throw in things like talent and vision and such so we can move on.

I’ve felt less than human because of how weird I am. I just don’t “fit in”. I can understand my fellow humans very well… eerily well, to be honest.

But I can’t relate to them on a personal level.

And I’ve always felt so weak and fragile compared to my fellow yard apes. Like they are real people and I am just some pale cipher cowering in the shadows wishing he could be a real little boy for once.

The ghost of a lonesome child, timid and full of panic.

So in both senses, I have never felt truly human. Hence my statements about not being a real person. Statements which make perfect intuitive sense to me but make no sense to those who do not live inside my skull.

And that’s most of you.

But the thing is, I am human. As human as anyone else. Objectively speaking. Two arms, two lung, two gametes, and a pimped out brain. Bipedal locomotion. Opposable thumbs. A social insurance number. The whole nine yards.

So there is no question as to whether I am, in fact, a human being.

And yet it feels weird even saying that. In fact… come closer, this is the hot goss…

In fact, it feels like a let down. A demotion. Like it’s bad to be “merely” human.

What did I think I was, you ask? I don’t know. An angel? An alien? A holy man? Some kind of secular saviour? I couldn’t really tell you.

Maybe it’s just a manifestation of all that keeps me apart from others, positive and negative. My deep and terrible maladjustment makes it hard for me to imagine myself in there with all the other sweaty beach apes even intellectually.

I fear (and yes, sometimes even hate) my fellow humans on a deep primal level.

Kind of makes it hard to imagine myself as one of them.

Where I should be feeling human connection, I feel pain and fear instead. On that one level, I’m as autistic as Rain Man. And I don’t know if that can ever be fixed.

So not an alien, just alienated.

And it makes me feel oh so cold.

More after the break.

Sad little monkey

Let’s talk about one of the world’s most depressing experiments again.

Namely, this series of experiments. You know the ones, where little baby monkeys were raised in isolation from their peers, which caused them to develop a lot of strange compulsive self-mutilating habits, then when they were introduced to a troupe of monkeys who had been raised normally, freaked the fuck out, went to the part of the enclosure furthest away from the troupe, attacked any other monkey that came near, and remained reclusive, paranoid, and fearful for the rest of their lives.

i can relate.

I was raised in isolation too, little monkey. Not total isolation, thank goodness. In my preschooler years, I had my family, and friends, and all that good stuff.

But once I entered school, I was isolated. No friends. Very little attention back home. Beaucoup de bullying. Teachers didn’t like me either.

And so forth and so on.

And you know what? That just shouldn’t happen to anyone. I fell through the cracks so hard I left new cracks behind. Nobody wanted to deal with me. I was this weird hyper-precocious slobby little fat kid that nobody liked because I was kind of a handful.

My extraordinary IQ made me highly unpredictable. People literally had no idea what I would say or do next. And the methods one normally used to control and guide children all relied on an intellectual superiority adults did not have over me. I was innocently contemptuous of my school work because it was absurdly easy for me, which endeared me to neither students or teachers. I had no fear of adults whatsoever (after all, I was smarter than them) and occasionally even corrected my teachers in front of the class. And I was always a mess.

These days, when a kid is always messy, they realize that means they are neglected.

But who is going to think the super smart kid who talks like an adult is neglected? He seems so god damned sure of himself.

And I was, and am. And yet, I wasn’t, and am not.

Intellectually I am incredibly confident.

In everything else, I am a twitching pile of human refuse.

In other words. one sad little monkey.

And I don’t want to be that way. Who would? I want to be the friendly, lovable, sociable person everyone loves that I am when I play Fruvous. I don’t want to freak out when I a around people I don’t know. I don’t want to be paranoid and panicky. And I definitely don’t want the feelings of helpless rage that comes with the fear sometimes.

But social damage can run mighty deep. Sometimes it feels like there’s me, and then there’s the cross-wired berserk over-sensitive alarm system that is my social anxiety and general social maladjustment.

And I wish I could just shut all that shit down. Rip out the whole system and replace it with something normal and sane. Finally rid myself of this cacophony of demons.

But it’s not that simple. These reactions are programmed into my frigging endocrine system. They happen on a level far beyond the reach of the reasoning mind. No matter what I tell myself about how irrational it all is, my body dumps those chemicals into my bloodstream anyhow, and then I have to deal with them.

So there I am. one fucked up little monkey, in a raging whirlpool of fear and dread, helpless to stem the tide.

Poor little monkey.

Someone really needs to take him home.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.