Eccentrics with unseeing eyes glided through,
savouring amid so much society their own particular loneliness
and private sins and sorrows. – Iris Murdoch
Albert Einstein suggested, the one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.
The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.
The old man couldn’t help noticing
the two of them – completely different, completely different places in life – seemed to be experiencing much the same sensations, saying the same things.
All my life… I have never felt like I fit in. Thought I fit in, but I was just kidding myself. Tried to fit in.
What do I do now?
How?
Charles Bukowski said,
The problem was
you had to keep choosing
between one evil or another,
and no matter what you chose,
they sliced a little bit more off you,
until there was nothing left.
At the age of twenty-five,
most people were finished.
A whole god-damned nation of assholes
driving automobiles,
eating,
having babies,
doing everything
in the worst way possible,
like voting for the presidential candidates
who reminded them most of themselves.
I had no interests.
I had no interest in anything.
I had no idea
how I was going to escape.
At least the others had some taste for life.
They seemed to understand something
that I didn’t understand.
Maybe I was lacking.
It was possible.
I often felt inferior.
I just wanted to get away from them.
But there was no place to go.
If there is no place to go, stand tall where you are.
“Enlightenment is being alone in a crowd; a feeling of oneness in a crowd – this is a sign of wisdom.”
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that.
See, you can be a guru or a sitar player.
Trust yourself and be prepared for pain. A lot of pain.
On your own terms.
That’s how you get away from them.
Then you are free.
Then you fit in.