Through my entire life, I’ve been inherently nocturnal. As a kid, I would be put to bed with the light off around 9 or 10 and then I’d sit there in my room with no music, no light, nothing to read or do until 2-4 AM. And so I thought about everything I could possibly think about for a space of about 5-6 hours every night. At the age of 12, I wrote a book of perhaps a hundred simple philosophical statements that – if I had my adults levels of writing ability – individually I could have pontificated on each one for at least a few pages. But here are three central tenets:
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We’re here, living. All else being equal, we may as well try to enjoy the experience. (Obviously, that needs to be modified by anti-hedonist/golden rule/paying-it-forward philosophy, but that’s getting off the topic, so pretend that I included a healthy discussion of the minutiae and mitigating factors here.)
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At the same time as we are each trying to get the most out of life, since we are each individuals what “the most out of life” is, is different for each of us. More importantly, the precise “most” for me only happens if I have a clear understanding of what sort of person I am. Not everyone wants to be famous, not everyone wants to be self-confident, etc. Only by discovering and accepting the goods and bads of your personality can you actively find a position that works for you to get you what you want, while mitigating the downsides of your personality.
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Also, we must realize that the only thing in life over which we have any control is ourselves. If you aren’t exercising that control, you’re leaving your fate entirely up to chance.
Now, while I would still consider these basic ideas to be sound and accurate, the thing that I didn’t consider is what happens if you are the only person in the world who lives according to this philosophy.
It is, basically, a philosophy of individualism and non-conformance. Not anti-conformance, mind. Just explicitly considering and choosing from among all options based on what seems right for you.
But the thing is that people inherently distrust anyone who acts rationally. This is an unnatural and creepy way to go about life. Though I’ve never done anything particularly antagonistic, belligerent, nor dangerous to anyone else on the planet, and though I write about philosophy, economics, politics with an eye towards improving the state of the human condition, I still consistently receive feedback that people find me scary, like they can’t trust that I won’t knife them down just for kicks. And for any one thing that I do, people can never help but categorize me into some random stereotype. even my family who have known me my whole life. For example, I went to college in Japan for the sake of getting some sort of secondary skill-set along with my college education, like speaking a foreign language or gaining a foreign view on the world. And yet try as I might, my parents – who have heard this reasoning dozens of times over the last decade and consistent descriptions of why I have no love for Japanese society – continue to assume that I had yellow fever or am a weeaboo. It’s very frustrating to constantly have people second guessing my actions or my reasons for taking them.
It’s also lonely. Besides being misunderstood and feared, you find that you’re living in a world of conformity. The “non-conformists” like goths, emos, or metal heads are still just a minority clique. The only individuals are, perhaps, the insane and while I’ll admit that someone insane might actually keep me on my toes, that would tend to be in a worried that they might knife me down just for kicks sort of way. I have to assume that there is someone out there who can honestly say that to the best of their ability the person that they are and everything they do is carefully calculated to be honest to their unique tendencies and allowing those to thrive. But where do you find one another? I’ll be darned if I could even convince anyone that I even am as unique and beautiful a snowflake as I claim to be. And going out and meeting people or looking through websites is only depressing for showing what a small range all of humanity is willing to publicize themselves as. Perhaps the person I want is among them, but there’s no way to tell.
If I want someone cranky, how can I find that out without spending weeks or months with that person to draw it out? If I want someone spiteful, or egotistical, or childish, how do I find them? How am I supposed to know that of all of the people who like to hike and dance and drink wine which ones have the personality traits that would interest me? This is all self-defeating if the whole goal is to find someone who matches your individual needs and yet everyone is too lazy to figure out what sort of person they are, or too shy to say what that is. This is why half of all relationships fail, and why I encourage people to realize and live according to the realities of themselves.
But at the same time, if I say that I’m cranky, overbearing, and have the play style of a 10 year old, that turns everyone away. My only option is to conform and present myself like any other boring asshole, which means that any future that comes of it is predicated on a lie. For certain situations I don’t mind lying, but for this, I feel like I’m finally actually doing something creepy. And it will be the only time I’m not accused of it.