Other people exist. THAT'S AMAZING!! !

Post Reply New Topic

Meanwhile [I love that word for an opener], this thread is providing evermore food for my theory on exactly who it was that felt different.

I'll elaborate. Very recently there was a thread something like "When did you first realize you were different?". My response basically: always.
In my case there were circumstances that made that normal. I was a bloody fair lightblond young white prince in the darkest of Africa, for some three years, then two more in the nastiest of Africa. Later,... the list goes on, and that will be for another thread (?). I was more or less unique.

However, I am also still very much in the phase of reading up, hampered by the facts that I have no real place to live, nor an own computer - nor the cash to buy stuff. I am totally dependent on what the meagerly stocked local library happens to grant me in its infinite coincidence. I was very lucky in the books that came available over the months, and the order in which they did. And very occasionally, I bought.

Oliver Sacks' An anthropologist on Mars for sale; whatever my financial manager might mutter, the impatient entrepreneur decided there was no excuse. It was time I read up on Temple Grandin. I knew about the squeeze contraption, but her description of the feeling when squeezed - there was an instant echo. That too, will have to be for another thread.

Back on topic: in 'Mars', Temple talks about how at school she yearned for friendship but somehow somewhy never found herself included. In my reverse-translation: "I could not figure out what I did wrong. Strangely, I did not realize that I was different. I thought the other kids were different. I just could never figure out why I did not fit in with them." (my italics).

Now, given the above autobiographical indication for me feeling different from them, why did did exact phrasing it echo so strongly inside me. That must have been recognition, as well.

I've got a virtual tenner that says that, primarily & emotionally, most of us did not come to the realization we are different, it's THEM - they are different.

This realization, off course would have to come at the age when contributors to this thread discovered, amazingly, that other people exist.

[quote=, I did not realize that I was different. I thought the other kids were different. I just could never figure out why I did not fit in with them." (my italics).
[/quote]

As a child in school, I had no concept of being different, for all I knew we were all thrown in this strange playground and it was everyone for themselves.

Here’s a step further:

Isn’t it amazing that out of all these people it is YOU personally that is observing the universe from where you are when it could have been some other person in some other place.

When I have a close call, such as almost getting in a car accident, I always think "Some alternate reality me just got killed!" or "Maybe I died and havent realized it yet!"

It really was amazing when I thought about it...