Invisible

For someone of my stature, it's amazing how well I play the wallflower. I can blend in, fade to the back, and become completely unnoticed. It's been a gift since childhood. I have known how to stay out of the way and not call attention to myself. Even now, at 25 ::shudder:: I can walk into a room silently, and sit without anyone noting my presence. 

This has been easy, I'm quite shy naturally, I don't like to call attention to myself generally. Some of you might think, what? E? Shy??? No way! alas, it is true. I've learned to compensate for my strong desire to disappear by being loud, abrasive, outlandish. I learned that quiet was an easy target, caustic was not. But, still, an introvert through and through. 

Only recently have I realized that my invisibility cloak, the one I thought I'd left behind early in grade school, is still very much hung about my shoulders. Friends don't know me, they don't see me for who I am. No one does. I've gotten so good at pretending to be something else that who I am almost doesn't exist. 

I can't be angry, I have created this world in which I am only seen as one thing, and all details contrary to that thing are discarded as irrelevant or out-of-character. But it does make me a little sad. I hope that when I grow up, someone sees me. The real me. Someone knows me for who and what I truly am, and I will no longer be invisible. 

Rumination

I am wrong. Friends, family, and society in general have let me know this in no uncertain terms. My world views are apparently skewed, my lack of need for others to do things for me, to be there for me, is apparently unhealthy. This, I simply don't understand. I understand how our society in America has turned from idealistic-isolationists to idealistic-individualism wherein each person is a unique flower, who is capable of the most amazing and wondrous feats imaginable! This, my few dear readers (who, by the way, I still haven't quite figured out why you're even reading this...) is a rather large, steaming pile of bullshit.

Each one of us is one of almost 7 billion (a number we are expected to reach by this Halloween!) Moreover, you are 1 of 7,000,000,000 people on 1 planet of 50 billion planets (50,000,000,000) in our galaxy, and 1 planet of 100 sextillion (100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [well, between 21 and 36 zeros depending on what country wrote the information I read...]) theorized planets in the universe...not to cut anyone down or anything - but in the great scheme of things every individual is nothing. We are smaller than grains of sand on a beach. We hardly even exist in the greatness of all things.

But we've been programmed to walk around this planet like we own the damn place. Like this rock, floating precariously in the middle of a chaotic solar system, is our oyster and we are all precious gems gleaming on it's surface. How arrogant are we? I can't, with any integrity, say that other people should sacrifice their time and money for me, because I am a grain of sand.

In my head, the proverbial "I" is irrelevant. I am one of a family, of a city, of a state, of a country of a world. My wants and needs are no more important than the survival of my race (HUMANS) and the care of the only planet we know of that a. we can get to reasonably, and b. can support us, even if just barely. Yes, science has told us there are many other Earth-like planets, but our space-travel isn't exactly awesome yet...so, we're kinda stuck here for now.

Why would I, the .00000000001% matter so goddamn much? I mean, I'm rather fond of myself, but I have my own needs and wants mostly under control. I don't require a village to fawn over me. I don't need my birthday, which 19,178,082 other people probably share to be a day of frivolity or a general celebration of me.

Maybe if each of us started to view their own existence as their own responsibility, and stop with this shitty idea that we are remarkable and precious little humans, and start realizing we are cogs in a massive machine (Earth, Humanity) that's needs are paramount to all of ours.