Knowledge

I am different.

I think everyone eventually makes this realization at some point in their lives. It’s an important part of growing and becoming an individual. There are varying levels of extremity, but everyone looks around at some point in their lives and notices for the first time that they are unique. Some may realize it at a young age, perhaps while playing on the playground, and then never really think of it again. Other people struggle with their individuality their entire lives.

But it isn’t just identity is it? On the contrary, it seems that people who dive more deeply into their own self-understanding are the same people who dive more deeply into every other facet of life. Some people just seem to live on the surface, never analyzing, never pondering, and other people live at a deeper level.

I don’t think one is better than the other. They are both methods of life, and everyone succeeds in living. I don’t think that it’s possible to fail at LIFE. After all, to live means only that you metabolically process oxygen and nutrients, excrete waste, take up space, and eventually die. This isn’t a sad or morbid way to look at life. Actually, if you think about it, this way of thinking about life is quite liberating. Why be afraid to fail when failure is impossible?

But these people who live more deeply just have an innate desire to KNOW and to understand! And unfortunately, if they cannot come to terms with their own desire to understand more and to dig for deeper meaning, it’s quite possible they will miss out on simplicity. One of the most important things to learn about living is how to stop pushing forward. There is always something to do, isn’t there? There is ALWAYS something that can be done. Although for many people, the ability to slow down and relax comes naturally, for other people this ability must be learned. But more importantly, these people must REALIZE who they are. If they do not realize, and if they do not learn how to enjoy the world, they will rush through their entire lives. They will hurry and hurry and hurry and never get ahead. Because let’s face it, there is always something that can be done in life.

All of this comes down to self-realization. Sometimes I believe life would be easier if I could live on the surface the way I see some of my peers living. It’s as if for some reason I was born caring about the whole world, seeing everything through everyone else’s eyes, living as an observer. Blacks and whites disappear into a world filled with shades of grey. Even when I look at myself, I am sometimes overwhelmed by how complex my own personality is. But it is not a complexity which is altogether confusing. And I have found that knowledge is power. Nothing is a stranger to me if I can learn about it, myself included. The more I learn about myself, the more comfortable I become with who I am. Over time, I realized that I make more sense if I remove myself from mankind as a whole and examine my nature independently.

I am, innately, a solitary person. The more I accepted my introverted nature, the less frightening it seemed. And the less I tried to fit myself into a social world which confused me, the less confusing it appeared. After a while I realized that I make more sense to myself if I imagine that I am an entire different species of human. I can live in a world of people, friends, family, and coworkers more harmoniously if I stop trying to fit myself into their canvas of puzzle pieces. I am simply not one of them. And over time, as I stopped trying to be one of the masses, I felt less lonely and more integrated. I think perhaps it was because when I was constantly comparing myself to them, I felt alienated and different, but once I realized that I simply cannot be one of them, my differences became acceptable. I suppose it would be how a cat would feel once it realized that it was not a dog. Imagine how frustrating it would be If a cat had been living its entire life trying to bark at cars, but had all along been wondering why none of the other dogs could climb trees and walk along fence tops! The entire picture becomes more understandable once the poor cat realized that it was not a dog, but another mammal altogether.

The same was the case for me. I am different, a different type of human. I think differently from all of my friends and family, and sometimes, when I explain my thought processes, I am met with silence and confusion. Now I believe that some people who know in their soul that they are different from the world become bitter. They push and try to cram themselves into social boxes where they do not fit. This only makes their differences more obvious. But there are others, like myself, who handle things differently. My goal in life is integration. I want to blend. I want to function smoothly in society. Why should I make myself seem like an alien? It is enough that I know in my heart that I am different. My own unique viewpoint on life enriches my life every day in ways that are astounding. I would be lying if I said that I don’t often feel superior to others. If they could only see through my eyes for an hour! Everything is layered; everything can be followed, integrated, grown and linked to everything else. We live in a world of intersecting and ever changing dynamics. Everything is related to everything else! There is so much to know, and everything I learn adds onto and enhances everything I already know. I love that about life.

And this mental integration which for so long handicapped me in my relationships with other people eventually became the single most wonderful part of my life, I only had to set it free! Unfortunately however, the way I see the world which makes science so simple and effortless also makes people confusing and convoluted. This is often the case with introverts and people who are strong in science and critical thinking. I find social norms strange and confusing. Simple things like small talk and friendships may be second nature for many people, but for me they took lots and lots of practice. I spent years of trial and error learning social customs which most people learn within a few weeks or months.

I think often people like me who do not get society as a whole are labeled as people with “rough teenage years” or who went through “phases”. And often, the investigation goes no further. However, my nature is analysis, and I needed to know why I am the way that I am. Once I realized the reasons I struggled so much with understanding and acting appropriately in social situations, it took all of the confusion out of my behavior. In fact, if I could have been given an early dose of self-understanding, I probably could have prevented many of the social catastrophes I blundered into. In much the same way, a person with low blood sugar can prevent fainting if they just keep some food with sugar nearby. It’s just a matter of knowing beforehand. I guess that’s just life. If I had a mainstream personality I would have been able to understand myself more easily, and there would be less confusing time spent in exploration limbo. 

You see, knowledge is where real power lies. Why do you think there are historians, and writers, and journals, and photos? Every generation passes its wisdom and new knowledge on to the next generation. In a way, I think that we’re afraid that if we don’t pass what we've learned and our stories on to the world, that we’ll just kind of….cease to exist. We’d disappear, no longer matter, hold no value, be forgotten….we’d just….vanish. That truly must be the worst fate for any human being.

Imagine if you woke tomorrow, and suddenly the police come in and threw you out of your own home for trespassing. Another person who resembles you is now living your life. And the most infuriating part is that no one seems to notice the difference! You employers hand him your paycheck, your mailman brings him your mail, your dog whimpers and runs to him. Even your own wife and children look you in the eye and deny that they know you! Every high school, college, photo you've been in, friend you know now accepts the impostor as the genuine individual. You have been effectively erased from history. What a truly horrific nightmare this would be!

This, my friends, is why knowledge is the true currency of planet earth. I don’t know a single individual who would trade their place in history for a lifetime of wealth. After all, what good is wealth if your name and story were blotted out of history the moment you died? Your whole life would have been spent as a ghost. You would build a life of memories which would disappear forever in an instant. You would lovingly form relationships with people who would never even remember that they loved you.

Yes, it is knowledge which gives us meaning, and holds us together in an ever-growing web of human knowledge. It is a web which each of us sees and experiences; a web, into which, each of us adds our own unique branching and inter-connected contribution. But I would like to suggest that self-knowledge is the most significant type of knowledge that we can acquire. Self-knowledge is a key which each of us receives, and with it we can decode the world. Without it, we can never hope to understand the universe, and our place in it.