Truth Serum II

I laid awake thinking last night about me- seems to be my favorite topic of thought these days.  I try not to view it as completely narcissistic, because the concepts that I'm "chewing on"  are universal in nature and not merely centered around me.  Currently, I'm struggling with a concept that, until recently, I thought I had figured out.  The concept of sameness in humanity.

Before I go off on a tangent, some background information about my original thoughts on this topic.  I've never thought we were designed the same.  Or actually more to the point, I never thought I was designed the same.  As egotistical as that sounds, and I'm becoming more and more aware of just how elitist this thought pattern is, it's the truth.  I've always thought sameness applied to others.  Always have seen it in others, this status quo mentality, Lemming thought process.  I've always rallied against this concept.  In fact the worse thing I felt I could ever be in this world is average.

And so, I was determined to be different.  I looked at all the Lemmings, the vast landscape of human sameness and ho-hum existence, and began fervently packing a bag for a different destination.  I purchased my one-way ticket long ago and never looked back.  I traversed mountains, climbing up above the cloud cover and dug out a space where I could sit.  And sit I did.  I sat and looked down into the valley of sameness, from my exceptional vantage point.

I even tried to help lift others out of sameness.  Tried to take people with me, friends, family members, yet in the end they always failed to reach the summit.  And so, lacking the endurance to push them up (you can lead a horse to water...), I came to the decision that they were just designed to be like everyone else, and I was just different...exceptional.  For whatever reason, I was lucky enough, or more determined, to not be status quo.  This used to bother me, used to make me feel isolated, until I just accepted this concept...that I'm not like everyone else, nay, I'm better.

'Tis a difficult thing indeed to think of myself this way, yet I cannot hide from this truth.  That was how I reasoned my uniqueness.  In this line of thinking, I could keep everyone at arm's length.  I could climb down from my mountain and mingle with the locals, but in the end my home was on higher ground.  Ugh, how revolting was I?  Funny, I never considered myself to be egotistical or elitist.  However, I can see now how my line of thinking, my idea that I am different/ unique, has created in me a separation.  A separation between the rest of society and me.  This separation has built up a considerable amount of pride and ego.  A feeling of self-importance, not that my life is more valuable than another, but that I've figured out something that other people hadn't.  That I'm more aware of things, more able, more intelligent, more equipped to handle the deeper theories in humanity.  That I'm different, and in that difference is excellence. 

My ego would like to take this opportunity to point out that I did try to use this excellence to help others excel.  However, my mind feels obligated to point out to my ego, that while I was helping others, I was also, in fact, aiding my feelings of self-important, better than you, excellence. 

I'm reminded of a recurring statement my parents used to say when I was young,"There's just no getting through to you.  I can't tell you anything."  It's a bitter thing indeed to look back and see that they could've been right all along.  That all this time, all these years, when I thought they just didn't understand...could it all have been me? I have a difficult time thinking it was all me, yet is it true? Ashamedly, it's easy to take on roll of teacher, much more challenging for me to be a student...sigh.

Ugh is this true...is this really true?  My inner thought process fights these notions as not plausible.  I can't be this way.  "It's not what you think!" my ego wails from the corner.  You're misunderstanding, I...I haven't explained it well," it's panicking now.  Wringing it's hands, it grabs at any past notion it's ever implanted in my brain to try and throw at this new revelation, trying to kill it in it's infancy. 

But now that I've seen the truth, reverting seems impossible.  After all, it's expensive to change a ticket...and what if there aren't any flights available when I want to return?