i have come to realize that people don't like me.
they like how i treat them, sure. they like that i look into their eyes and cock my head to catch the nuances of their words. they like the sensation of intensity slathered all over them, of seeing their reflection in my irises so clearly that they could use it to preen. and they do, naturally.
but me, myself, this person who makes them feel like they might suddenly understand what it means to be larger than life, to be the epicenter? i don't think anyone really knows who that is. including me.
but my lack of a well-refined, uncontradictory ego is not the concept i aim to explore. it is that realization of mine on which i plan to pontificate today.
people don't like me. they like how i treat them. they like that i don't see their bank accounts or their clothes or significant others. or, more accurately, that i see all these things but choose to put them aside, and focus instead on Who these people Are. i don't care about their socio-economic status or the grades they had in school. i find the experiences of the inhabitants of their family tree pointless and irrelevant. and i really couldn't care less about designer handbags or armani tuxedos. in a sense i am Tyler Durden, though i don't devalue individuals and slopping them all into the same vat of stanky mystery meat. i don't even liken each person to a favorite stuffed animal or some other much-beloved object. i don't see them as extensions of anything at all. just themselves.
it's a part of my ethics, you see. treat human beings like human beings, with intrinsic value. not as symbols of something else, or in light of connections to things entirely outside themselves. apparently that's a novelty to most people. why it should be so rare to find oneself treated as a human being, with inherent value, is beyond me, but it is considered such. in truth, i have found few others who view other people as i do, tragically enough.
i provide people with a sense of validation when i talk with them, about their problems and their wants; their hopes, dreams, aspirations. when i am genuninely interested, facinated, even, in what we're talking about. and people hope it means something more, that it means i care for them, specifically, and more seriously than for anyone else. because than they can lock that validation up in a box and carry it around in their pockets. which, really, speaks volumes more about them than it does me.
