“According to psychology the greatest form of peace is to have zero desire to be understood, pitied, admired, or even known.”
I keep bumping into people I haven’t seen for a decade or more. People I have very fond and detailed memories of. People who feel just as close to me now, as they did then- even though they are unrecognizable today, and either don’t remember my name, or don’t remember me at all.
My sense of time is disjointed. Things that are quite far away feel close sometimes, and things that are close sometimes feel quite far away. Below the disjointed timeline, I have a love that is quite timeless for everyone I know that never did me wrong- and some love still for those who did.
I remember this guy Devon, back in my early 20s. Elder millennial like me. Short. Nerdy. We bonded over a mutual love of photography and sci fi. I really loved him, though after he found out I was sleeping with a woman he yearned for, I became an object of loathing to him for no good reason. He’d avoid me completely, and I’d hear about awful things said about me behind my back.
It’s an interesting feeling, being shanked by someone you care for and respect.
It’s happened often. There is a type, that does it. Very nice people on the surface, usually- non confrontational. But also weak, and wracked with insecurity. I suspect my eccentricity reminds them of their own eccentricity, so hate is easy to project. But my eccentricity is not the same as others. I make mine work.
On the list of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, Mike from North Carolina makes the list with this observation I never forgot: “I’ve never met anyone else who was so completely themselves, and had it work.” It was nice to hear, because most of the time it really did not seem to work for me.
“Creepy Gabe” was a nickname I learned was being passed around behind my back from some friendly acquaintances of mine. And I am no stranger to making an absolute fool out of myself in public, either by face planting in the middle of a crosswalk, or driving off with my tailgate down my tools spraying out the back of my truck down main street. But I’m a pretty good sport when it comes to laughing at the futility of my own ego.
Still, I am quite sensitive by nature, and Mike’s words meant a lot to me and my lifetime of mostly-failures up to that point. The point of ultimate peace involves zero external validation…but that is not likely a place anyone will reach without at least a BIT of external validation along the way.
Loading comments...