I recently visited a public event which was quite crowded by regular people of all ages. It felt like a perfect cross section of the population in my area, maybe with a bias towards young families. Just what you'd expect, nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing that seemed to be off was ... me. Standing in this diverse mass of people, I realized how alienated I felt from all of them.
I don't necessarily consider myself an introverted person. It's not like I'm super extroverted, but I like being around people and in principle I'm also open to forming new relationships. Just not with everyone. I'm quite picky when choosing the people I surround myself with. I'm very lucky to have met some amazing people that I call my friends now and I love hanging out with them. But that's just a small, very weird bubble. If you like reading my comics, or even my blog posts, you're certainly part of it, even if I've never met you before. If we ever meet, I'm sure we can become friends.
But seeing all these people at that event, I realized how unlikely it is that any one of them would get me. It's not just the fact that they don't know about my comics. They obviously don't because I'm not playing the social media attention whore. It's the fact that I'm glad they don't because I'm certain they just wouldn't understand them. I'm not trying to produce content for the masses here and I'm absolutely fine with this being a very niche site, but seeing all these people reminded me of how niche it really is.
The troubling thing about this is that these are supposed to be my people and I just don't feel like it. When I'm among those people, I don't feel at home. I don't feel a connection with them and that is a very lonely feeling. I feel like I'm in a foreign country and want to go home, but I was born here and there isn't anywhere that would qualify more as my home than this. I can understand the language, I know all the unwritten rules and rituals of the culture and I know my way around. But it's like I'm seeing more than everyone else. It's like everyone around me is on a drug that numbs their senses and makes them complacent while I'm not for some reason.
I realize that phrasing it like this sounds pretentious, like I'm implying that I'm better than everyone else, but if this were the case, why would I hate it so much then? I often think how much easier life could be if I were like them. But if a fairy showed up and offered to turn me into one of them, I'd decline. I want them to be more like me instead of the other way round. I guess that means that I do think I'm better than them, for some definition of the word "better".
It feels horrible to admit this, especially publicly on the internet, but I'm trying to establish a form of nihilism for myself that is built around brutal honesty and admitting that I do think that I'm better than the average person may be an important step. Come to think of it, most people probably think that and wouldn't admit it. The trick is that everyone defines "better" in a way that they come out on top. And that's fine, since the alternative is to hate yourself. The fun thing about nihilism is to realize that nobody is better than anybody else, because there's no objective definition for "better". Everyone just does things and people either like that or they don't. Some people do things that many people like, I do things that only few people like and, unfortunately, most people do things that I don't like.
I dream of a place where I'm surrounded by people who do things I like and who will like the things I do. That would be a place I could call home. Maybe I'll find it some day. But if I don't that's also fine. You tend to see more of the world as a traveler. And I'm not travelling alone. I have some amazing friends with me. One of which is you.
