Borrowed Wings
A line in a movie I just watched hit a nerve. The character said he felt that he'd been flying on borrowed wings, that his acheivements weren't really his own. I feel like that sometimes. I'm not saying that I feel I am worthless, I just really feel like people make judgements about me that don't fit. As a direct consequence of those judgements I get benefits I don't deserve. Or perhaps I do deserve them, but I resent them because they aren't really benefits. I feel that I need to prove to myself who I really am before I can truly feel at peace with my life. The problem is that I'm really not sure who I am. I'm not even sure who I want to be sometimes. I do know that I enjoy helping people. I love working with people. I hate living with people. I hate having roommates. Well, there are very few people that I'm really comfortable living with. I much prefer living alone. I don't enjoy socializing with random people I don't know. I truly love working with my patients, and I enjoy the challenge of connecting with them to be able to serve them better. I guess I'm more comfortable not being myself with people. I feel like I am too much of an oddity to be really liked. I feel like most people just look at me and wonder how a person can be so not like everyone else. I like being not like everyone else. I guess I've just chosen to enjoy being different because the alternative sucks. I'd have to hate every minute of every day and that is no way to live. I can't really choose to be something I'm not, so I choose to like who I am and embrace it. The problem is that it gets lonely. And everyone else seems to think that it should be easy for me to connect with someone and ease that loneliness. I think that a real, true connection is so hard to find.
posted by skyeJ at 11/16/2005 01:49:00 AM
3 Comments:
What movie did you watch?
What judgements do people make about you that entitle you to benefits that you don't deserve? I don't know you very well, maybe not at all, but from the little that I do know I can't picture how that description fits you.
I also hate living with people. I never liked having roomates; even the ones that were (and still are) good friends. However, lately I have begun to question whether or not living alone is the best thing for me. I tend to be a little socially disconnected. Living alone only fosters that. At least with roommates, even ones that you don't like, you are forced to have a little bit of social interaction.
When you say, "I guess I've just chosen to enjoy being different because the alternative sucks", what is the alternative? Being the same as everyone else? Or not enjoying being different?
Did mom send you the cartoon about Sesame Street? (probably not). It has the characters telling the kids to turn off the TV and become free-thinking individuals, or they can leave the TV on and avoid being "freakish outsiders for life". Personally, I'd rather be a freakish outsider than do what everyone else does...
There is nothing inherently wrong with being the same as everyone else anymore than there is anything inherently wrong with being different than everyone else. What one should avoid, in my opinion, is being the same as everyone else simply because you are moving with the herd. The same can be said of being different just for the sake of moving against the herd. Anti-conformity is the most base and indecent form of conformity.
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