I Am Different [Being Different]
It's ironically ugly, that with literally tens of millions of different people making websites, from all over the world, and with billions of people writing posts and creating content of one kind or another... even with all of that, the pull of conformity still drives nearly every one of them to create the exact same bloody things. Granted, I mostly only see things written in the English speaking parts of the world - but that's still a hell of a lot of people, from a hell of a lot of different cultures and walks of life. And yet, on the entirety of the internet, there's not a single site that I've been able to find where people have serious discussions about anything, or put themselves out there in a way that's truly intimate. It's all shallow now - people all follow the unwritten social rule that nothing should ever exceed 240 characters. And that's fine for the people who want to live that way - I don't get it, but go for it if that's what floats your boat - but why is it that in a place like the internet - a place so vast that it should contain literally everything - why is it that it only contains the shallow? The one liners? The face-value wisdom? Why are there huge swaths of the human experience that simply don't exist here?
But I already know the answer - or at least a big part of it. We're sheep. We conform to the norms, and value others who do the same. Whenever we see someone putting out one liners or easily-digestible face-value wisdom, we look at it favorably - because it's within the standardized lines of what you're "supposed" to do. And whenever someone steps outside of those lines - like I'm doing right now - we look down on them. We don't include them, because they're not including [i]themselves[/i] in the thin lines that are required in order to be a part of it. We look down on them - not because what they're doing is necessarily wrong or destructive, but purely because it's not within the lines.
And even in a place as vast and as varied as the internet - the collective creation of the whole human race - that same crushing conformity makes memes where there should be memes AND other things. It makes one liners where there should be one liners AND ten liners AND even a few hundred liners. And I'm sure that there are other factors at play too. There are also undoubtedly at least a few counterexamples to my idea that there are huge swaths of the human experience that don't exist at all here. But by and large, I think that the picture that I've painted is true, and that it'll be rejected by nearly all of the 5 people who bother to read it, because neither what I'm saying nor how I'm saying it are within the lines of what people are supposed to say, or how they're supposed to say it.
I sometimes wonder if Autistic people are a step forward, rather than a step back. Or if they're a step back, but in the [i]right[/i] direction. I don't believe in God, but if I did, then I would wonder if Autistic people were God's way of trying to strip away all the crap, and wake us up to ourselves. Maybe one last desperate attempt before we finally blow ourselves away.
But I already know the answer - or at least a big part of it. We're sheep. We conform to the norms, and value others who do the same. Whenever we see someone putting out one liners or easily-digestible face-value wisdom, we look at it favorably - because it's within the standardized lines of what you're "supposed" to do. And whenever someone steps outside of those lines - like I'm doing right now - we look down on them. We don't include them, because they're not including [i]themselves[/i] in the thin lines that are required in order to be a part of it. We look down on them - not because what they're doing is necessarily wrong or destructive, but purely because it's not within the lines.
And even in a place as vast and as varied as the internet - the collective creation of the whole human race - that same crushing conformity makes memes where there should be memes AND other things. It makes one liners where there should be one liners AND ten liners AND even a few hundred liners. And I'm sure that there are other factors at play too. There are also undoubtedly at least a few counterexamples to my idea that there are huge swaths of the human experience that don't exist at all here. But by and large, I think that the picture that I've painted is true, and that it'll be rejected by nearly all of the 5 people who bother to read it, because neither what I'm saying nor how I'm saying it are within the lines of what people are supposed to say, or how they're supposed to say it.
I sometimes wonder if Autistic people are a step forward, rather than a step back. Or if they're a step back, but in the [i]right[/i] direction. I don't believe in God, but if I did, then I would wonder if Autistic people were God's way of trying to strip away all the crap, and wake us up to ourselves. Maybe one last desperate attempt before we finally blow ourselves away.
