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Outsider

I am different.  I would like for the ways in which I am different to be unimportant.  But deviation from the norm in the eyes of many demands explanation.  And sometimes it wins pity. 

I am conflicted about pity.  Occasionally pity means I get treated the way everyone should be treated all time.  I'm convinced that humans by and large do not like each other.  We fill our lives with enemies.  Either our own enemies or people who are united with us in being the enemies of others.  Different people

The word "outsider" implies that it is possible to be outside.  Outside what?  The wall of the normal or the territory of the Good Gang.  Humans don't form clans.  They form gangs.  I am not in any gang.  Part of this is by my design.  But part of it isn't.  I am not even part of the autistic community.  Maybe I should be but I'm honestly not interested in communing with anyone at this point in my life.  I have essentially retired from socializing.

Certain mental health professionals have expressed certainty that properly motivated I could find a group where I'd feel like I belong.  This could be true.  I'm not properly motivated to find out.  I spent a long time trying to fit in.  All of my childhood, my formative years.  I'm too tired to attempt that anymore.  And I feel like I've seen everything groups, communities, and gangs have to offer.  The main things seem to be rules about who is a true member and disdain for other groups.  The dominant theme being exclusion. 

Groups are exclusive by definition.  All of them.  A group that contains everyone isn't a group.  It's just everyone.  I could say that I am a member of a group in that I am a member of the group that includes all humans.  And that is true but it's still meaningless.  That group is not a support structure.  One cannot necessarily rely on someone to help you just because you're a fellow human.  This is sad and frustrating, but only because of the myth of human community.  Of intraspecies solidarity.  It's a romantic idea: that we are inclined to help each other on no greater basis than our shared humanity.  We are not so inclined.  Though we are capable.

Here is what I'm saying.  I'm not motivated to try to integrate anymore or to "find my people."  When it comes to that I have been out of tricks for a long time.  Once I realized that being myself was not the way, I became lost.  And once I realized that fellow humans were not my people, I decided that I didn't want to have people.



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