2003-09-13 - 9:38 p.m.
Once Bob asked Katie and I if we ever felt like we were the only people who ever Got It. Got It with Capital Letters. Did we ever feel like we were the only people who ever understood what was going on around us? Katie said, "Sometimes I feel that I'm fundamentally different than everyone else around me." I said nothing that I can recall. Probably some sort of non-commital grunt.
This brief conversation has stuck with me all these years because I find myself more and more frequently feeling one or the other. Sometimes I think, why am I the only one seeing this? Am I the only one who Gets It? Or more frequently: What is it about me that is so different from everyone else around me?
Everyone's different, sure, and I admit feeling this way when I was living back in Minnesota. Perhaps this was because that was the only home I'd ever known, and I didn't know what being different truly was; perhaps this is because all teenagers feel this way at some point or another.
Since I've been in the Army however, these feelings come more and more frequently. My sense of humor, for example, is so out of whack with everyone else's that I think I make some people uncomfortable when I laugh. Someone will say something that was not meant to be funny, or no one else finds funny, and I'll be laughing hysterically. Or everyone else will be laughing and I'll give the speaker an indignant "what the fuck?" type look. It ususally doesn't bother me, but sometimes it really hits me that 1) I'm the only one finding this funny and 2) there's something potentially unusual about that. Or what about when people are so wrapped up in themselves that they interpret everything as having to do with them. That kills me! Why can't people see that 9 times out of 10 a conversation between A and B has nothing to do with C? Or if it does, C only figures into .001% of it, not the 50%-75% C seems to assume.
Just a few things I thought about at work tonight, as I caught myself pointing my finger angrily at my computer screen, enacting a conversation in my mind that has never taken place, nor will ever.
I find myself noticing things and making connections that most people don't when I have an unclouded mind. All that talk of letting life and the energy force flow through me those months ago and I failed to take into account the clouded mind. Or maybe I did think of that in some sort of circuitous fashion. I think I thought that by allowing life energy to flow through me instead of trying so hard to channel it, my mind will become unclouded; I see now that if my mind is clouded there won't be a flowing of anything.
Having a clouded mind has been in my thoughts lately because I've noticed that sex has started to creep up more and more into my waking mind. I looked at the calendar and realized it's been about 6 weeks since the last time I've had any intimate physical contact with anyone, so this seems about right that I would start to become more preoccupied with it. I'm trying to think of ways to get beyond sexual frustration. Normally one of the ways I get beyond it is to entertain the possibility of inviting someone over, or focusing this energy onto someone else. Even if nothing happens, which normally it doesn't because I'm too shy, the energy has an outlet. Right now, something strange has occured to prevent this: there isn't anyone I know that I'm attracted to that there is any remote possibility of ever getting with them, ever. Not even in my daydreams, that's how unlikely it is. Which only compounds the frustraton. How am I supposed to have an unclouded mind? I can't just ignore these desires or the clouding will get worse.
I'm just in the beginning stages of frustration right now, which is good. Hopefully I'll be able to find a cure until it becomes full blown frustration. Maybe I shouldn't treat it so much like a disease; this is totally natural. Hmmm... maybe I should see it as something positive? Is that the key? Hmmm how can I make this positive.
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