Uncommon Man

I do not speak for the common man, because I am not the common man and I don’t care about the common man. This is not to say that I am bereft of empathy or that I am incapable of relating to common people on an individual level, merely that the majority of values and institutions held sacred by common people bear little resemblance to my guiding principles.

            I am done making my pleas for the unity of this nation or this species. I will not ask that people set aside their differences and work together to achieve a greater good. I will not, in fact, even suggest things that might make society better. For 10 years of my 23 years on this planet I have spoken my mind and the vast majority of those who encounter my ideas, regardless of their religious or political affiliations or lack thereof, have rejected my thoughts and my personality on a strong visceral level. In other words, I am not one of you. I do not understand you. You do not understand me. I will not try to change the world, because it is not my world to change. I live in a different world than the one you inhabit.

            I am not a Washington outsider, but an earth outsider. I am not here to criticize the human race under the delusion that my criticism will make man reflect on and change his behaviors. I am here to criticize the human race in much the same way that a film critic would criticize a movie. This is my review of human beings, particularly Americans.

            But, unlike the critic who gets to sit in the comfort of a movie theater and watch events unfold on a screen, I have to participate in the daily goings-on of this planet. The movie critic who found Silence of the Lambs to be a great film would probably not want to actually encounter Hannibal Lecter. Participation in the movie that is American life means that my criticism is not objective. I cannot look upon the malevolence of bullies without painful memories of being chased down by the other boys in my neighborhood and abused for not being like them. I cannot look upon the love of parents for their children or vice-versa without wistfully looking back upon the love and devotion of my own mother and father. I am tainted by my humanity; a plethora of good and bad memories have shaped me for better of for worse into the person that I am.

            I often wish that I was the sociopath that my enemies often accuse me of being, so that I could look at the world with a greater degree of detachment, but wishing is by far the most useless of all human activities.