Catcher in the Rye
It was about someone like me. Lost.
He felt like everyone was a phony, struggling to find a real conversation with someone.
I feel like no one, is not necessarily a phony, but un-authentic, like they’re all part of the herd. As if no one is unique. So I struggle to find intellectual conversation because no one is real like me.
“His environment can not provide him what he needs or he believes his environment cannot provide him what he needs, so he gives up seeking before he even really started”
I feel like that resonates with me. Like I’m so convinced I’m so unique and different that no one, nothing, can match my combination of intellect and heart. The ironic thing is the idea I think that I’m better than everyone proves I’m not. The heart? it lacks humility, and that is one of the main attributes needed when you say someone has heart. And the mind? the person who thinks their the smartest person in the room rarely is
But I feel like I need to dig deeper. He finds his only joy in children, in the innocence of children. And I find my only joy in feeling important. Why? its not just because I want to be unique enough to be needed. Why do I feel like I need to be needed? did I not feel seen and heard as a child to where I have that desire as an adult. Who am I trying to impress, whose attention am I seeking. Why am I seeking attention?
maybe it has nothing to do with my childhood, maybe it has every thing to do with who I am as a adult. I feel stuck in the background. Like I’m behind the herd or outside of it. So I rather wear my uniqueness as a badge of honor than as a scarlet A.
But who deemed me outside or behind the herd than myself? Thing is I don’t want to be in the herd. Maybe because I’ve been outside it so long the inside looks off putting. But that’s what I mean, I have deemed my environment as without substance that I quit before I even began. I don’t mean quit trying to fit in but quit making connections, before I began, before I really began.
You don’t have to be like everyone else to make connections. But people, that’s all they want, everyone, just wants to feel connected. And most people assume the quickest or rather the most efficent way to get there is to be like everyone else, i.e. peer pressure.
so to summarize, put my thoughts together, i feel like people are un-authentic, they cannot match me, let alone grow me. So why connect with others… my belief contradicts my internal desire, to be matched, connected. So I cling to uniqueness, I cling to the mirage of difference I made. Giving up the only thing I truly long for, before actually reaching out for it.
