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There's many times that I find that I don't fit.
Many times I don't fit because I'm seeing "the problem" in a way that neither side sees and they both want me to shut up or go away.
I'm running about 60% correct on my unique perspectives. Not quite good enough to rely on it, yet...
I've learned a lot about people from them trying to shake me off my strange viewpoint.
Online, even more.
It's why I keep the comments open.
Being closed minded is something shared by both sides.
An assumption that their experience is universal is shared by both sides.
An assumption that their circumstances are universal and can be applied to everyone, everywhere is shared by both sides.
It's why nothing gets settled.
You cannot book a Zeppelin to Siam, so explaining, in detail, about how you bought your tickets, enjoyed the flight and marveled at the sights...
There are no more passenger dirigibles and Siam is Thailand now.
That world no longer exists. The past is another country. You don't live there anymore.
So many people are expats in their home town because they can't accept their experience is unique to themselves and their circumstances were exceptionally beneficial to them.
They don't understand that doing exactly what they did, even a year later; or two states over, does not find the success they enjoyed.
But I will keep trying to explain it.
You will not understand it.
Sometimes it seems like there are two kinds of people in the world... those that are pretty much fortunate and things just tend to work out for them. They kind of assume that either it is because of their own brilliance or way of doing things and that anyone who follows their example will share the same success. Now I'm not saying that maybe they aren't just doing a lot of things "right" (there are many right ways to do things and likelwise many wrong ways), just that as you say, other people with even slightly different circumstances in location or time may not have the same experiences.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand there are other people who no matter how hard they work and even when they do the "right thing", a lot of the time things just don't work out so well. Maybe not always disasterously, and often they kind of get by and are able to muddle though, but generally they're always struggling just to get by. Other people often look at their hardships and blame them for them, even when that isn't always fair. Sure, maybe sometime it is, but not always. Sometimes they are just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
I've pretty much always fallen into the latter group. Pretty much every time I get ahead the universe seems to find a way to kick me in the teeth and knock me back down a few pegs. I don't really know how sometimes I've made it through other than I guess maybe I'm too stupid or too stubborn to realize I would proably be better off just give up. And I have to give a few friends credit for pulling me through some of the hard times. I really couldn't have done it without them. But of course most of my friends are more like me than not, so it isn't like they've got a great deal of resources to work with either.