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Existing Within an Observatory

Existing as a human being on our planet is strange. That isn't to say I'm not grateful to exist, or that I don't feel the beauty that being a human entails, but I can't help but feel out of place occasionally. I find myself driving to work, moving as an object - a metal machine with four wheels, rather than a person. I find myself walking on roads and sidewalks, not directly touching the Earth that my feet evolved to interact with. I find myself regularly interacting with refined minerals with screens that humans have, over many years of innovation, have taught to process, think, and respond. It all feels so overwhelmingly artificial and unnatural. 

This feeling even occasionally extends to my interactions with others. I have close friends that I share the most intimate details of my life with, exchange thoughts and feelings with, and typically have a mutually beneficial friendship with that I value highly. But there seems to be an active feeling of alienation that I feel amongst my peers, regardless of whether it's an accurate interpretation of reality or simply a self-inflicted projection of my own subconscious. It feels as though that instead of being immersed in life like many people seem to be, I view things as an observer of sorts. I feel distanced from my humanity in a way that, while I'm certain is not wholly unique to me, appears to be somewhat uncommon. 

The ideas I attempt to discuss with most people tend to result in disinterested acknowledgment, apathetic agreement, or at its worst, a slow-burning death of the conversation as the other person's eyes fade into complete emotional and intellectual detachment as I speak. I put so much value into understanding the abstract, the ideological, and the intangible systems that interact with one another to make our world the place it is, but people generally appear to be very disinterested in that sort of thing. I don't necessarily blame them, though; everyone is immersed in their lives to varying degrees, and not everyone has the mental space to dedicate to more abstract concepts, especially if it doesn't result in a tangible improvement for them or if it adds to other, more critical stressors. 

I suppose it's just frustrating more than anything. I want so badly to view humanity through the lens of a human, not through a series of abstract concepts and intersecting systems. Ideas motivate and guide people, but events and actions are what they value and remember. I would love to talk about events and actions just as much as my peers, but it's hard to do so when those things result from ideological motivation; the motivators of which lead to morally acceptable or unacceptable outcomes. To lack an ideological foundation or basis would make all of those events or actions arbitrary, I feel, and the ideological aspect is the most fundamental and interesting.

I understand that I'm not special or exceptional, and that I fall prey to the same biases and flaws that are intrinsic to all people. I logically understand that I am also a human, who experiences the same thoughts and feelings that all humans do. But when I express the thoughts and feelings I experience, why are they received with such bewilderment and disinterest when the same people respond to others' with expressions of engrossment and joy? 

I feel as though I exist within an observatory, able to see the stars and make measurements, but cursed to be so incredibly distant from them that I can never quite be sure of their true properties. 

Oh, what I would give to be one of those stars.

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