Cog

I don't know what's up with all these historical references recently. Maybe I'm just looking for some escape from the here-and-now tethering me to the desk and the textbook, to the eye strain and the laziness, to the endless games of Risk on the computer and the gray and cold.

When I was younger, I liked insects when the other kids liked to throw rocks at other kids. I liked looking at maps over walking down the street. I liked goung out to the backyard and thinking about the winter solstice instead of playing with the dogs. I liked raiding plum trees more than eating breakfast. None of these things made me very popular, but lest you think I was some sort of rejected freak, I moved in normal enough circles. I just happened to have a lot of time on my hands. Childlike imaginaton combined with circumstances I could not appreciate created a strange alchemy.

I don't think I had a fully working Theory of Mind. The assumption that others had had the same ideas as I did was beyond me for a long time. It was encouraging when it came, because it assured me that there was a group I could belong to. (And we all search for that, no matter how jaded or independence-minded we are.) The next phase of the realization was crushing disappointment. I have been trying to come to terms with my own lack of uniqueness. I think I finally managed it, but it's not a realization one just blithely throws out there at parties or, even worse, at random.

Maybe that's why I dislike writing anything with a plot. Every conceivable type of plot has already been done. But my favourite alternative, the associative stream-of-consciousness, is not user-friendly in the least. One day, we shall come up with a synthesis of these two, but not just yet.

Consider: "...so you lie to yourself to be happy. There's nothing wrong with that. We all do it."