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Tue 18 Nov, 2003 05:57 am
Antisocial, ignorant, negative, pessimistic, contemptuous, cynical; just a few of the many words you people associate me, and a large part of society with, but have you ever looked over your high nose to see who we really are? You generalize us all into this little disgraceful group in the hope that the reality of what we are telling you will not sink itself into your perfect blindness of our world. You chose to close the door on us and then are so shocked and amazed when one of us stands up and voices our opinion. You spend your lives conforming to the ?'proper', ?'correct' society in the desperate hope that you will be accepted into the walls and bars of the social order which appears to be the greatest, most valuable goal you can strive to. Chances are that even as I am writing this, there are millions of people all around the world putting on the fake smile, cladding their face in make-up to prevent anyone from seeing who they really are in the sheer delusion that those layers make you look better than your true self, all the time conveniently neglecting the fact that all you wonderfully cultured, first world people are spending more money per annum on these cosmetics than could feed innocent children in Albania and Siberia for years.
The planet we inhabit is a beautiful place, and in all truth, no one appreciates this more than the people I am talking about when I refer to us. You all immediately assume that because we have developed such a negative view on the population we endlessly try to escape, we do not appreciate the natural world that surrounds us, , however, it is quite to the contrary, it is us that appreciate and respect this, not just the big picture, but the detail, the smallest aspects of this planet are continually the most beautiful - before we reach mankind. We are this excessively negative because this is what you have done to us; you have forced us beyond your peripheral vision in the hope that we will simply disappear never to return and leave you in this illusion you have all created for yourselves. But have no angst, you can label your filthy conscience clear because we really have nothing against you for this, we actually thank you, we thank you for making us see that you are far from worth out time, our patience, our respect and most of all, our love.
A man who kills another in self-defense is thrown into prison for the remainder of his life while millions of people around the world pay millions each year to witness this death, this pain, this injustice, and then you name it entertainment. You wipe out entire eco-systems which have been in place for thousands of years to build your houses and you kill guiltless, harmless animals and leave them to disappear from the face of the earth - then you call it sport. You meet people in who fall in love with you. They trust you, they respect you and they are there day in day out, just because they care for you, they trust in the idea that you will do the same for them when the time arises and then you neglect at the very last second. You work yourselves into the ground all your life and look back on your deathbed and all you feel worthy to do is apologise to all the people you have hurt. You go over dead bodies to get what you want, not for others, just yourself.
You wonder why we detach ourselves from your world; you question why we are so anti-social, ignorant, disconnected. This is why. It is not because we just don't like people for no reason; we have every reason to separate ourselves from you. We do not hate you; if we were to do that we would be just as low as you. No. We understand your ways, however, after feeling so much hurt, deceit, and insecurity, mistrust and pain, we have lost all respect we once may have had for you. We are shut behind this door, not because you shut us in there to put us away, but because we shut the door on you, because we needed a release from the chains and shackles you would have us in if we were to stay. We are this way because you have hurt us. We are this way because we do not want it to happen again, and our culture grows larger each day. We retreat behind that door where we can protect ourselves from your hell. Some of you refer to us as the outcasts of society, as the dark, ?'mysterious' people you know are there but will never understand because you don't have the will to try and the majority of you don't even care, and it is you that these words are directed at. You say we are quiet and detached, and you are right, we are quiet and detached, because this is the guard we place between you and us in the desperate attempt that it won't happen again. We find refuge and peace in solitude and we hold very few people close to our hearts but those we do, we will die for.
You believe that we hate everything; you believe that this is unhealthy; you believe that we don't deserve to be a part of your society. The trouble is that you have your very first assumption is incorrect. We hate nothing, and although we love very little, those things are worth dying for to us. We cannot change the light under which you view us, and we don't particularly intend to. I do not write this as a grudge I have against you, nor do I write this in spite or anger towards any of you, I write this with the sole intent of showing a few of you the way in which we see you, your ways, and the way you treat us. Science says that what sets human beings a little higher than a monkey swing from tree to tree is our intelligence capabilities, our emotion levels, and our ability to show compassion, affection and love - so what sets you all apart? Negative? Cynical? Pessimistic? No, just Society.
...Justin
Thankyou greatly for your input Lonely Heart. I don't think many people would even bother reading all of my writing, it is the people that truly give a damn that do. I plan to write a lot more on this forum - about everything from life and relationships to my very favorite topic, humankind, so I would highly appreciate any input you may have. Thank you.
please do justin, i wouldn't think i'd read all of that but while reading i didn't even realize how long it was, but it was worth it. I'll be looking forward to reading more of your stuff so please write soon...lol
I clearly understand Justin,
but do not keep myself apart.
To separate from this unloving, judging society- is really necessary,
but to deprive them of my talent is selfish. SO- I muddle along day to day, channeling love and good will-- chiefly among many who do not even know I am there.
You write very well- and I am deeply touched by your hurt. I share it.
Wow, I am elated that my writing has touched you in the way I have intended Theollady. I knew people like myself were there, I just didn't know where. Thank you greatly for your input but if you do not mind my asking, what is the talent you speak of? - I too am in the same situation. I am so delighted someone can understand my views and has used them in their lives as I have.
Nothing I can brag about Justin.
But a frequent ability to send LOVE or advice, or other needed qualities to someone who has finally discovered how shallow this world of people are.
That is the best way I can describe it.
And yes, you have a gift for stating the TRUTH, without wasting words.
Justin, what I just read hit so close to home.I thought for years these same thoughts,but dismissing them as "it's just me".Soon I was losing
friends & family for speaking my mind,which to me made sense,not to them.Soon the negative comments consumed me and I believed my place should be to sit down shut up and do what I was told,to agree to save my face, my friends.Funny thing though when you lose everything and I mean everything(i.e. money ,friends,family)all that is left is your will ,your thoughts,and you .Your thoughts are not negative unless they are put into that light.Your life and out look are not negitive either ,unless they are put into that light.We are out here Justin,alot of us ,most choose to say and do nothing,and feel guilty for it don't.Take care of what you love ,wife ,children ,friends,whatever it is
You are all 100percent accurate; people like you and I do not hate people, it may seem this way to those who cannot understand (those to which my very first post was directed) but we love far more than we hate and to the majority of us, hate is a completely inconceivable word. Our planet is swarming with hate, anguish and unhappiness as if it is an epidemic sweeping mankind. Crazy is absolutely correct in saying that we are such quiet people because A) to many of us, this seems like what we are here to do, and B) this has caused us to find the most comfort in solitude.
Human beings, for some unknown reason have a desperate need to understand the world in which they live. They need to know why the sky is blue, they need to know that in thirty thousand years an asteroid will collide with the earth - there are no logical reasons for this knowledge and millions of our dollars are wasted each year on this, and similar pointless research. People like you and I, Montana, Crazy, Theollady, etc, are like the sky, like needing to know that the world will end in thirty thousand years. People have a need to understand people like us and because there is no way in which they can without being placed in our shoes, with our experiences, they illustrate us as outcasts of their 'perfect' society. I cannot explain this and I have no doubt any sociologist could either.
From what I gather, all of the people who have sent posts so far are from the other side of the planet to myself (Australia) and still encounter the same unhappiness, fear and exclusion as I do here. But we need to understand that this does not really matter to us. The most important thing to keep in mind is that we are the true individuals of this world. We are the people that still hold moral and ethical values close to our hearts The majority of the human race are just sheep, following one another for comfort, for their own personal gain. But despite what I may have implied in my initial post, we do have the rare ability to find peace and inner happiness in solitude and among those we care for.
Let me share a story about an area in my life that may help you to understand my reasons for becoming a ?'social outcast'. When I was only five, I lost my younger sister (of five weeks) to SIDS; an event which tore my Mother apart and left a huge dent in her entire life. As a child of such a young age, I was largely oblivious to what this truly meant. People had always told me I thought too much or I was overly creative and I just saw these comments as insults made towards me but when I lost my sister I began to take a deeper perspective on life. The people that were what my Mother could call friends were rarely there to support her, my Father left without a trace and no one really gave a damn - these were the people that were our ?'friends'? Since this time in my life, the way I see people has not changed because it continues to happen with even the closest of ?'friends'. I stopped talking to the kids in my class, I stopped going out with friends and found a much greater enthusiasm in nature, in arts, in the small details of life that are so easily overlooked by the masses. All my high school life I was told I needed to study hard to make something of myself - I thought I already had. I had discovered who I really was, and although I had no crucial purpose to be here and I doubt anyone would miss me if I were not to be, once I discovered and accepted this, I found no need for it and discovered that could enjoy life's simplicities much more than its extravagance.
We all have simple lives; it is how we react to things and how we deal with these that determine how difficult we make it. I am sure that there are people reading this just wondering what we are talking about and why we bother, a wonderful example of these people is on the link below where I posted the exact same writing one week ago, go and see what the people that do not understand us think,, I doubt you will be surprised.
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=15276&highlight=
After clicking on that link, I find my sympathy dissipating!
Justin
I just read your other thread and I think you lost everyone there because they never truly have been victims of society. I know exactly what you're saying because I have been a victim my entire life in one way or another and the effect it had on my life was terrible. Over the years I have learned how to avoid being that victim and learned to stand my ground which has made me a stonger and better person. I was overweight when I was growing up all through my school years and I was tortured in school because of it and never had many friends. The few friends I had in school are still my friends today. One of those friends who was my very best friend for 26 years died of cancer last year and no one thought enough to pick up a phone to call me to tell me she died. Anyway, my best friend use to stand up for me in school when I was too afraid and she would even end up in fist fights because she was defending me. I quit school when I was 15 because I couldn't take the abuse anymore. By the time I quit school I had already lost a lot of my weight, so by the time I was 16 I was quite the little fox. All of a sudden I was being treated like a human being. One part of me loved how I was being treated, but another part of me resented the fact that it was only because I was thin and pretty. I loved the attention I was getting from guys and was dating up a storm. God forbid if I gained a mere few pounds when I was dating someone because he would be sure to mention that, which of course brought back ugly memories and made me resentful again. When I was 21 my father died which was sudden and devistating for me. I was closer to no other person on this planet as I was to my father and to this day (17 years later) I still have a huge hole in my heart. Well, my father had a successful construction business when he died that my brother and I decided to run ourselves. We had 5 guys working for us at the time and while my brother worked on the job, I was in charge of the paperwork, payroll, lining up jobs, collecting from the builders, etc... We had 3 jobs going at once with a forman in charge at each location, so I never went to the jobs to check up on things. After time went by I noticed that the business account was going down instead of up and on top of everything else I had to do, I had to go snooping around the jobs and spy on my employees. Come to find out, 2 of my highest paid employees where doing absolutely nothing and charging me 55 hours each a week and one of them was supposedly my fathers best forman. By the time I figured out that they were robbing us blind I was forced to shut the business down because they drained our business account. If I hadn't have just lost my father I would have figured out what these losers were doing right from the start, but they took advantage of me at the time knowing I was mourning. I was beside myself to say the least and now I had to start all over again. I knew I wanted my own business again and eventually I bought my own taxi. I did well with my business, but it was only because I learned how to play the game. I had to kiss up to dispatchers I didn't even like because even though the taxi was mine I had to use a taxi company to get my jobs. Then I had to deal with other taxi owners who had scanners in their cabs which made it easy for them to steal other peoples jobs. Then it was hard ffor me to find drivers to drive my cab and keep the wheels rolling when I wasn't working and finding drivers you could trust wasn't an easy task. At one time I hired one of my best friends of many years thinking I could trust here, but dispatchers were calling me at home telling me she kept vanishing and if it continued they wouldn't give her anymore work, which would hurt me. I ended up calling her on her cell phone to tell her what the dispatchers were telling me and she got upset with me, so I had to fire one of my best friends. I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point in why I understand where you're coming from. I was bitter for a very long time, but I have finally found peace in my life, although I still do have lots of trust issues. I do walk softly these days, but I do carry a big stick.
I also wanted to add that I was born and raised in the US and was forced to leave the country by the Dept of Social Services who threatened to take my son away because I refused to drug him with Ritalin. That was the ultimate slap in the face.
wow, truly incredible! thank you for that Montana, it opens a whole new perspective =) I am going on holiday for the next week so I will not reply much, but keep adding posts please. Thanks - Justin
You're welcome Justin. Thank you for giving me a place to vent. I have said most of it before on this forum, but I still need to get it off my chest every now and again.
Have a wonderful Holiday :-D
Justin its important FOR ALL TO UNDERSTAND that it is not a negative view of people or circumstance that motivates your writing ,it is an understanding or better put a sensitivity to what is happening in the world and around us personally.To the people in the other thread let me ask you ,do you know who lives next door to you ?Do you stop and try and start a conversation with somebody on the bus or subway?Justin you know where you are right now ,stay on the path,trust your instincts.
Well said Crazy, well said indeed! The people of this world are far too concerned with their own issues and worries to even bother. It is funny you should mention talking to ?'strangers' on the subway, etc. On my return from my recent holiday I found myself in full conversation with a homeless man, something I have not done before and had always assumed that a homeless person would be extremely melancholy, disgruntled and dangerous, however, I was proved completely wrong. This man, Craig, was easily one of the friendliest, happiest people I have met in my seventeen years here. I expected him to have experienced great losses in his family, in his finances and in his trust in the modern world yet as our conversation continued I discovered that he had never lost any of these things...
In 1978 he graduated from the University of New South Wales (Australia) with a law degree. He established his own law firm, which he ran for six years and became extremely successful however, after enabling hundreds of criminals to walk free, a feeling of sickening guilt enveloped his life; he shut out his friends, his colleagues, his own practice yet this still did not rid the feeling. When he left high school, he has very little money, yet very wealthy grandparents. He knew he needed a higher education and the only way he could achieve this was to request financial support from his grandparents who would only oblige if he was to study law - something he did not wish to do but completed the course against his will.
In 1985 he sold his home for $650,000 and spent eight years traveling around the world all alone. He settled here in 1993 and has been living in the parks of my town since. He has not a single regret now because he feels he has redeemed himself for the evil he has done in the past. He lives alone and wears he same clothes everyday yet they look as if they were bought yesterday. He is as happy as he feels he can be and would not even consider living like a ?'normal' person again.
This is a story of what it really takes to survive, what the essentials of life really are, what happiness means. I had seen this man countless times in my time here and never stopped to talk to him, simply assuming he was a dangerous, unsavory character like many homeless people are portrayed as. I crossed yet another boundary and realized that I was, in this case, guilty of saying one thing and doing another. I generalized this man as if he was nothing more than a bum on the street. How many others are the same? This was the most sincere and happy man I have talked to in over a year and he was what I would have expected to be the unhappiest.
It is not the superficial things in life that allow us to be happy and content, yes these things do help, but the basis of happiness is peace.
Peace within ourselves.
surprising isn't it,to just look around sometimes and see how and why other people find peace.Everybody is different though,all have to respect not how or why they found it just for the simple fact they had the courage to find it.Case and point with Craig.Unfortunatly not all are like him.Sometimes it is more the journey than the goal itself.By the way I am not nor you "social outcasts".I chose the path I travel,we just see things alittle different from the rest.
Crazy wrote:surprising isn't it,to just look around sometimes and see how and why other people find peace.Everybody is different though,all have to respect not how or why they found it just for the simple fact they had the courage to find it.Case and point with Craig.Unfortunatly not all are like him.Sometimes it is more the journey than the goal itself.By the way I am not nor you "social outcasts".I chose the path I travel,we just see things alittle different from the rest.
once again, well said Crazy!
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