The Wrong Question

     Lately I've still been feeling like an alien. 

     The reason why I so often feel like an alien is not because I'm better or worse than everyone else around me. I think I'm just in my own square of individuality, and I look at everyone else like they're in one big square. 
     I mean, I've gotten past most of it, but I've realized something. I've been spending a lot of time just asking myself why I'm this way. It seems like there's only me, and then all of you. Which is really and awful way to look at it, I'm one of you, aren't I? I'm not superior or inferior to anybody...and yet, I feel as if I'm both at once...
     The problem is, I've been asking myself the wrong question.
     The real question is: How is everyone else different from me?
     The truth is, they're not. We're all different, obviously, but we're all the same. 
     How is everyone different than me?
     They aren't.
     We're all individuals, yes. We're all ourselves, yes. But it is never me against everybody else. It is never a category where there's me...and then you. This is not a book where there's one chapter about me and 20 chapters about everyone else. This is not a book where there are 20 chapters about me and a single chapter about everybody else. I guess we're all in this together. Even if you feel like you know it's about you more than others, or about others more than you...we're all in this together. 
     We like to believe that we know this, but we don't. We don't understand that treating everyone with kindness, and love, and genuine care is the only way that we can even try to show everyone else that the line between inferior and superior does not exist. There is no line. 
     I always kind of feel that I'm on the outside looking in on everyone else. I think I'll feel this way for a long time...but I think it's because everyone is on the outside looking in at everyone else. I thought it was just me...that I was the only one who really felt this way, but I believe that we've all felt like an alien. I've never felt intimidated by this feeling, I've only felt lost and challenged. Lost because I seemed to have no direction to go, and challenged to find a direction. 
     You are in a square...but you're not the only one.

   
    "Have no fear, you will
     find your way.
     It's in your bones.
     It's in your soul."
                          --Mark Z. Danielewski