Quote:I have felt "out of place" almost my entire life. I think it's a matter of growing as a person, and being in the right location to resonate with the people around you. In my case, most of the people in my area are not in the same level of awareness I am. I have unfortunately been stuck living here ("here" being a part of the country that does not really resonate with me) all my life. The only times I ever felt like I was really "alive" were the times I was in Canada, Maine, Michigan and Washington State. In other words... a heck of a lot further North than where I lived all my life.

Sounds like you are growing and perhaps outgrowing the average awareness of the people where you live.

(03-17-2011, 09:55 AM)mat422 Wrote: Glad it's not just me and others feel that way too. The good thing about it though is normally if I felt like this in the past I'd be really down on myself, but lately I've just been happier for no reason other than being alive and enjoying the simple things in life.

Quote:I have felt "out of place" almost my entire life. I think it's a matter of growing as a person, and being in the right location to resonate with the people around you. In my case, most of the people in my area are not in the same level of awareness I am. I have unfortunately been stuck living here ("here" being a part of the country that does not really resonate with me) all my life. The only times I ever felt like I was really "alive" were the times I was in Canada, Maine, Michigan and Washington State. In other words... a heck of a lot further North than where I lived all my life.

Sounds like you are growing and perhaps outgrowing the average awareness of the people where you live.

Yeah I know what you mean. This has definitely been a growing process over the years, but now with the subliminals I think I am growing at an even faster rate of awareness. I sometimes compare it to people still plugged into the matrix. I don't know, but I've never been "plugged in" and I always saw things differently than others. Then when you try to point it out it just goes right over their heads or they think you are weird. It's like some people are so controlled by the media and they don't even realize it. I actually feel that sometimes I live within a fabricated social construct and I'm operating independently of it.

The other thing is I've never been outside of America, so I've always been curious of how different it would make me feel. After the earthquake in Japan there was supposedly no looting which didn't really surprise me. If that happened in America, well I can't say for certain what would happen. But I think America has a very "every man for himself" mentality which leads to a lot of selfish behavior. I was ready to slap my brother upside his head, he said if he was in Japan he would be looting. It seems that moral and ethics aren't as ingrained in America as they are in Japan. Either that or the Yakuza makes damn sure nobody does something stupid like looting after an earthquake. But I'd like to think that the Japanese are really just that honorable.

(03-17-2011, 10:19 PM)Shannon Wrote: Japan has ethics and morals that we don't because they are not being brainwashed with "Buy it now! Nothing's good enough unless it's instant and effortless! You want to watch stupid unrealistic 'reality' TV!" In Japan, they have stupid TV, but they recognize it as stupid, and they laugh at it. Here, we take it as the gospel truth and we use it to base our reality on. I honestly don't have much hope for the United States anymore. There's so much wrong at this point with so many people and corporations profiting from what's wrong that I just cannot see it changing. For the better anyway. We are definitely headed the direction that was prophesied in the movie "Idiocracy".

Quote:I don't know, but I've never been "plugged in" and I always saw things differently than others. Then when you try to point it out it just goes right over their heads or they think you are weird. It's like some people are so controlled by the media and they don't even realize it. I actually feel that sometimes I live within a fabricated social construct and I'm operating independently of it.

(03-18-2011, 10:50 AM)WildFlower Wrote:

Quote:I don't know, but I've never been "plugged in" and I always saw things differently than others. Then when you try to point it out it just goes right over their heads or they think you are weird. It's like some people are so controlled by the media and they don't even realize it. I actually feel that sometimes I live within a fabricated social construct and I'm operating independently of it.

This is spot on. I totally understand where you're coming from, you've summed up exactly how it is for me too. Have you ever read Bill Bryon's 'life and times of the thunderbolt kid'? Mildly plagiarizing a theme from that book, when girls comment on my 'weirdness', 'quirkiness' or whatever, I often joke and flirt with them that I'm form another planet and I've been sent here to "fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear my underpants over my jeans like superman." This get's a laugh, but at the same time it can feel isolating. I'd be lying if I said my 'uniqueness' doesn't bring about a certain degree of loneliness though.

It totally amazes - and depresses - me how few people I meet in my day-to-day life actually think for themselves. 'herd-mentality' doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm not even particularly 'weird'; my opinions aren't out there are anything, I just happen to think for myself. I guess that's a trait enough to make anyone stand out. It's always been that way for me though. I guess we all relate to the world in different ways. I feel I relate to the world directly how it affects me emotionally; what I observe in others is they relate to the world how they are told to relate to it, or how they see others relating to it. Unfortunately in the west it seems a very superficial, materialistic way of relating. Bottomless pit.

Quote:This is spot on. I totally understand where you're coming from, you've summed up exactly how it is for me too. Have you ever read Bill Bryon's 'life and times of the thunderbolt kid'? Mildly plagiarizing a theme from that book, when girls comment on my 'weirdness', 'quirkiness' or whatever, I often joke and flirt with them that I'm form another planet and I've been sent here to "fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear my underpants over my jeans like superman." This get's a laugh, but at the same time it can feel isolating. I'd be lying if I said my 'uniqueness' doesn't bring about a certain degree of loneliness though.

Quote:It totally amazes - and depresses - me how few people I meet in my day-to-day life actually think for themselves. 'herd-mentality' doesn't even begin to describe it. I'm not even particularly 'weird'; my opinions aren't out there are anything, I just happen to think for myself. I guess that's a trait enough to make anyone stand out. It's always been that way for me though.

Quote:I always told my sister that i must be from another planet or something for me not to relate to people the way others do. Like you said Wildflower i think it has do to with most people being superficial and materialistic. it seems like they think being cool is more important then just being you. I mean money and items are just that, what happens when you take that all way. They are nothing but human like the rest of us.

(03-18-2011, 06:07 PM)Shannon Wrote: It's always been common for people to think (and call!) me "weird" because I was different. As it turned out, it was not just me being intelligent, but me thinking for myself - and me spending time leaning and exploring ideas, instead of watching TV, cartoons, MTV, movies, smoking pot, etc. etc.

For a long time I thought there must be something wrong with me. Eventually I concluded that it was just the way things were, and I went off my own direction. As things have come into focus in the last decade, I have concluded that it isn't me being weird, it is me being different. I think for myself, I do things differently because I think differently. I see and understand things differently. I investigate things differently.

One of the biggest differences I seem to have is that when I study something, I study it starting from "I don't know" and then make it show me what it is. I also don't indulge in black and white thinking: there is always some angle I may not be aware of, and I try to keep that in mind.

The biggest problem I see with people in general these days in the United Sates is that decades of advertising hammering in the ideas that we should be lazy and let someone else do all the work, and that we should have whatever we want and have it instantly, have resulted in the populace primarily believing that they shouldn't have to think... TV and other sources will tell them what to think. That laziness leads to a lot of black and white thinking... it must be X or Y; there cannot be any other explanation. Unfortunately, our current scientific community worldwide seems to have a bad case of this sort of faulty thinking.

My experience is that there is ALWAYS a possible explanation we haven't thought of, or maybe we can't even gather the intelligence to conceive of. There's no such thing as black and white.

So I have concluded that I am different, but not strange. I have learned to be careful with people who can't or don't understand what I do. The problem, I believe is that our culture is being destroyed by this sort of TV/movie/radio/music based brainwashing that tells us, "Consume more! Consume whatever is cheapest! Consume whatever is easiest! You shouldn't have to do anything! You shouldn't have to make any effort, or wait for anything!" Consider our current TV lineups and ask yourself, what of today's TV options would be allowed to have been shown on TV 20, 40, 60 years ago? Not a whole lot! Why? Because basically a lot of what's on TV these days amounts to swill.