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Am I Human?

Humans are tribal. They tend to want to belong, but they don't want to belong to everyone. Humans only want to belong to a group of like individuals. Feeling that they're accepted into such a group is generally good for their mental health.

But a simple search for similar people is a shallow characterization of human tribalism. Humans want to belong to strong tribes. A quiet, inactive tribe with no standing is less attractive. Humans want competition and power. Tribes are, foremost, about war.

The compound main purpose of a human's tribe is to support compliant members, exile non-compliant members, and to crush nonmembers. Even within tribes, there is constant vetting. Who is a real member? Who truly belongs? Fakers aren't tolerated. Humans want acceptance - but only for themselves.

Given complete freedom to treat an individual or a group however they want, humans default to exploitation and abuse, especially in the case of their enemies. Tribes breed that freedom. They provide affirmation to members that outsiders deserve to remain outside, that their group is the good group, and that they are good by virtue of their membership.

A human who can't put up fences to seperate the unworthy from the worthy feels that they are one of the unworthy. Worth is a way of referring to membership, and membership is as important as the power to deny membership to others.  Humans want to shut others out as much as they want others to let them in. Indeed, exclusion is the point of tribes. If a tribe admitted everyone, it wouldn't be a tribe. It would just be everyone. Conflict is a human psychological need. This is how humans tend to use the acceptance that they want.

None of this describes me well. I am a small and static presence.  I have no interest in competition or in finding my tribe. I'm difficult to pay attention to because I speak in a way that seems unnatural for a human. I get nothing from socializing, good or bad. I have no impulse to play social games and people can tell. They can see that I'm tribeless. From a human perspective, if I'm without a tribe I might be sick, weak, or dangerous. There might be something wrong with me. If I'm outside, I must deserve to be. My life has entailed many encounters with people who have regarded me with disdain that would be unusual if I were human but which may be appropriate were I an alien or a monster. In considering all of this I have come to the feeling that I am not human after all.

Biologically, I am definitely of the genus Homo.  But I diverge from H. sapiens in ways that seem to me essential.  Is this important? What is human essence? Is it possible to ask if there is more to being human than biology without wandering into the mire of the metaphysical? I'm not interested in answering that question. I'm not equipped to, anyway. But, inasmuch as how I feel means anything, I don't identify with Homines sapientes as I know them.  This could simply be because our understanding of the bounds of neurotypy is too narrow; perhaps I don't feel human because our definition of humanity is anemic. What I will say with certainty is that the older I get the more alienated I feel.  My map of myself doesn't lie well over my map of others. The more I study the maps, the more differences I find.  And I receive reflexive hostility, both hot and cold, from people who see my differences and don't understand.  I've described myself alternately as an alien, a robot, a ghost, and even an allergen. I've said online, half joking, that I don't exist. But I think it best illustrates how I experience the world of other people to say that, in this time and place, among these peculiar African primates, I feel like a trespasser.

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