Today I find myself lost within the winding caverns of my mind, loosing track of the world of reality and wandering aimlessly through futile thoughts. I think I read too much, but it is one of my endless addictions, and probably my most favored escape from the world around me. I can read a 400 page novel in under five hours, not speed reading, and not skipping over monotonous descriptive paragraphs. I probably read more books in a year than many read in their lifetimes. Why is this you may ask? Well for many reasons would be my reply, one of the most important of them is escape from both the mental and the realistic in life. I find a lot of comfort in being able to drop my mind out of the here and now, forget my problems and find myself immersed in the problems of fictional characters, which are easily resolved by the end of the book.
I grew up in an upper middle class snooty white neighborhood, where the people where quite pompous and menacing to one another. I learned at quite a young age that although I harbored nothing but good intentions towards others and happy care free thoughts, in others this trait was not so. To say the least I was a pretty easy target for the more devious and undisciplined of my peers and often ended up being the brunt of their jokes and taunts.
To say the least I learned quite quickly that in order to survive in this dog eat dog piece of suburbia that I would have to find a way to make myself better. Now don't get me wrong, there are many ways in which to elevate ones self above that of their malicious peers. One way is to be bigger, another is to be smarter, and then there is the third way, the way I took and that was to be scarier. Believe me, this was not a conscious choice on my part, it was just the role I subconsciously fell into. However ones placement in the social scale of school is never really planned, or at least it wasn't on my part.
All I ever wanted when going through school was civility from others. I was never a person to make fun of the less fortunate, mentally handicapped or socially different. I had my small group of those whom I would call friends and spent much time avoiding attention from anyone whether it be good or bad. This works only so well for so long, for me it held out till high school.
High school if I am ever asked was probably the WORST four years of my life. To me it was a political and social battle ground where anyone no matter how inconspicuous they are get targeted on an every day basis by the evil doers on the other side of the war field. For the first two years I managed to keep the hunters and the scavengers at bay by being the biggest drug head on campus. The people of suburbia where most unused to having junkies in their mix and most likely told their children horror stories of killing, murdering, sinning, thieving drug addicts and so this ruse was able to hold out for a good period of time. However after this two year period of time my Meth habit caught up to me and I had to change my tactics.
It was in my senior year in high school (my junior spent in Drug Rehab and Home school) that I discovered that I could still come off as completely psychotic without being a drug addict. So I shaved half of my head bald, died it black and spent my days drawing pictures of people dying horrendously and talking overtly loudly about dead things and aborted fetuses (which my conservative classmates found quite appalling and my school principals who already had me fingered as suspicious suspect number one practically pissing themselves). However I found that this tactic worked, there were those whom were terrorized (who left me alone) and there were those whom wanted to be on my good side (just in case) that spent many periods in class kissing ass and complementing my unsettling artwork. I found it easier to be the unknown unsettling equation than to be the target of malicious slander.
Unfortunately although many of the uncivilized behavior seem to settle down after high school, I have found many people have not gotten over that phase in their self-absorbed little lives. However It is hard for me as an adult to go traipsing around other adults talking about dead things and causing bodily harm to others (which I never would really do). It might seem like a way of conforming, and I guess that it is. It is true that I hold not but disdain for current social standards but to one like myself, it is better to be taken seriously than to be written off as a lunatic when you hit college age.
I have lost my habit of spewing unscrupulous words at others, not to make them more comfortable, but for them to take me more seriously. Yes it is good and fun to keep people off kilter, but I am much happier with making them feel stupid than making myself seem scary. When those of conservative thought process bash me for being sinful and hell bound it is much better to come at them with a line from Nietzsche's the Anti-Christ than it is for me to tell them to go get raped up the ass with a hot curling iron or yelling at them "Rachael's abortion clinic you rape em' we scrape em' no fetus can defeat us!" I understand this to be quite offensive to many and that is exactly why I used it, however now that I am no longer an adolescent, the words would sound more than immature coming out of my mouth.
I guess that at some point it hit me, that if I wanted to raise myself off of the level of the hypocrites, the idiots, the confused and the conniving users, than the best way to do it is with words and knowledge. Although there are many things that I am not an expert at, I have found it is better to know a little about everything than it is to know a lot about one thing. Reading does this for me even when just reading novels; it expands your vocabulary and at times gives you peeks into the human psyche.
I have found that in many of my interactions with others in the world outside of that in which I surround myself in, that everything is a game. A game of who is more vicious, who is more knowledgeable, who is better, who has more control, and who can climb the social latter the fastest. I have never been one to enjoy such social climbing games, for I care not about fictitious placement in the world of the suburbians. To me this game is nothing more than a pretty illusion that only plays in the mind of the person. Just like the allusion that goes through the heads of those who put down others to make themselves feel better.
Believe me, there are many that I have come across that feel less than substantial in the reality of the world, and those people I often find playing the social game and putting down the less fortunate. I find myself having to maneuver through these people everywhere, even if its just as a passerby. These are the people who look at you like you have two heads, make comments about you to their friends about your outfit or your hair cut, these are the people who are overtly rude to others and manipulate a situation to get their way.
I understand that not everybody is like that, but I have known and seen a good share of them and although their despicable thoughts are not always pointed at me, I will see them pointed at others in the room. Many people are quiet like I am and mind there own business, but I can easily pick out those who see others as the enemy. Its almost as if they have an energy of agitation around them that gives them away as devious troublemakers.
I spend much time in public simply watching how others react towards one another and maybe this is why I am able to pick out such people so easily.
I must compare this topic of the inhuman actions and thoughts about others in America and Canada. So far being in Canada, the people are far less predatorial than those in America, I have stated this before. When walking through a supermarket, store or campus, one does not feel the high-strung air of agitation that hangs around such places in America. People do glance at one another, but the looks are different, they come more out of curiosity when in America those looks are more to size each other up. In Canada if you are judged less than satisfactory by others, you usually will never know because they keep it too themselves. In fact opinions about anything are very personal and one will never hear political rambling or social issues discussed in such a setting, unlike America.
All in all I would say the people of Canada are much more people friendly than their American counter parts.
I grew up in an upper middle class snooty white neighborhood, where the people where quite pompous and menacing to one another. I learned at quite a young age that although I harbored nothing but good intentions towards others and happy care free thoughts, in others this trait was not so. To say the least I was a pretty easy target for the more devious and undisciplined of my peers and often ended up being the brunt of their jokes and taunts.
To say the least I learned quite quickly that in order to survive in this dog eat dog piece of suburbia that I would have to find a way to make myself better. Now don't get me wrong, there are many ways in which to elevate ones self above that of their malicious peers. One way is to be bigger, another is to be smarter, and then there is the third way, the way I took and that was to be scarier. Believe me, this was not a conscious choice on my part, it was just the role I subconsciously fell into. However ones placement in the social scale of school is never really planned, or at least it wasn't on my part.
All I ever wanted when going through school was civility from others. I was never a person to make fun of the less fortunate, mentally handicapped or socially different. I had my small group of those whom I would call friends and spent much time avoiding attention from anyone whether it be good or bad. This works only so well for so long, for me it held out till high school.
High school if I am ever asked was probably the WORST four years of my life. To me it was a political and social battle ground where anyone no matter how inconspicuous they are get targeted on an every day basis by the evil doers on the other side of the war field. For the first two years I managed to keep the hunters and the scavengers at bay by being the biggest drug head on campus. The people of suburbia where most unused to having junkies in their mix and most likely told their children horror stories of killing, murdering, sinning, thieving drug addicts and so this ruse was able to hold out for a good period of time. However after this two year period of time my Meth habit caught up to me and I had to change my tactics.
It was in my senior year in high school (my junior spent in Drug Rehab and Home school) that I discovered that I could still come off as completely psychotic without being a drug addict. So I shaved half of my head bald, died it black and spent my days drawing pictures of people dying horrendously and talking overtly loudly about dead things and aborted fetuses (which my conservative classmates found quite appalling and my school principals who already had me fingered as suspicious suspect number one practically pissing themselves). However I found that this tactic worked, there were those whom were terrorized (who left me alone) and there were those whom wanted to be on my good side (just in case) that spent many periods in class kissing ass and complementing my unsettling artwork. I found it easier to be the unknown unsettling equation than to be the target of malicious slander.
Unfortunately although many of the uncivilized behavior seem to settle down after high school, I have found many people have not gotten over that phase in their self-absorbed little lives. However It is hard for me as an adult to go traipsing around other adults talking about dead things and causing bodily harm to others (which I never would really do). It might seem like a way of conforming, and I guess that it is. It is true that I hold not but disdain for current social standards but to one like myself, it is better to be taken seriously than to be written off as a lunatic when you hit college age.
I have lost my habit of spewing unscrupulous words at others, not to make them more comfortable, but for them to take me more seriously. Yes it is good and fun to keep people off kilter, but I am much happier with making them feel stupid than making myself seem scary. When those of conservative thought process bash me for being sinful and hell bound it is much better to come at them with a line from Nietzsche's the Anti-Christ than it is for me to tell them to go get raped up the ass with a hot curling iron or yelling at them "Rachael's abortion clinic you rape em' we scrape em' no fetus can defeat us!" I understand this to be quite offensive to many and that is exactly why I used it, however now that I am no longer an adolescent, the words would sound more than immature coming out of my mouth.
I guess that at some point it hit me, that if I wanted to raise myself off of the level of the hypocrites, the idiots, the confused and the conniving users, than the best way to do it is with words and knowledge. Although there are many things that I am not an expert at, I have found it is better to know a little about everything than it is to know a lot about one thing. Reading does this for me even when just reading novels; it expands your vocabulary and at times gives you peeks into the human psyche.
I have found that in many of my interactions with others in the world outside of that in which I surround myself in, that everything is a game. A game of who is more vicious, who is more knowledgeable, who is better, who has more control, and who can climb the social latter the fastest. I have never been one to enjoy such social climbing games, for I care not about fictitious placement in the world of the suburbians. To me this game is nothing more than a pretty illusion that only plays in the mind of the person. Just like the allusion that goes through the heads of those who put down others to make themselves feel better.
Believe me, there are many that I have come across that feel less than substantial in the reality of the world, and those people I often find playing the social game and putting down the less fortunate. I find myself having to maneuver through these people everywhere, even if its just as a passerby. These are the people who look at you like you have two heads, make comments about you to their friends about your outfit or your hair cut, these are the people who are overtly rude to others and manipulate a situation to get their way.
I understand that not everybody is like that, but I have known and seen a good share of them and although their despicable thoughts are not always pointed at me, I will see them pointed at others in the room. Many people are quiet like I am and mind there own business, but I can easily pick out those who see others as the enemy. Its almost as if they have an energy of agitation around them that gives them away as devious troublemakers.
I spend much time in public simply watching how others react towards one another and maybe this is why I am able to pick out such people so easily.
I must compare this topic of the inhuman actions and thoughts about others in America and Canada. So far being in Canada, the people are far less predatorial than those in America, I have stated this before. When walking through a supermarket, store or campus, one does not feel the high-strung air of agitation that hangs around such places in America. People do glance at one another, but the looks are different, they come more out of curiosity when in America those looks are more to size each other up. In Canada if you are judged less than satisfactory by others, you usually will never know because they keep it too themselves. In fact opinions about anything are very personal and one will never hear political rambling or social issues discussed in such a setting, unlike America.
All in all I would say the people of Canada are much more people friendly than their American counter parts.
I do greatly agree with using books as a way out. I do it all the time too....though my exit of choice is normally movies or games.
Sometimes everyone just needs to get out of thier lives I guess.....to kinda jump in the body of someone else and do something cool or great or sexy or whatever
Canada is sounding better and better every time you talk about it. And the simple fact that your there makes it a place Id like to visit anyway
Thank you for the comments you have left me lately
[Edited on Nov 25, 2005 1:59AM]
I have been to Cananda though. I think it's lovely.