Never Sure

Only another person, they mean little to anyone and less to her, although that was a somewhat inaccurate statement concerning this particular one. The words don’t fall on deaf ears, quite the opposite, but they carry very little weight unless the opportunity exists to turn them into fully developed ideas. A passing barb is useless against her, she reacts only to what she believes real. Regardless of origin, the only active service of an insult is to promote insight and self-awareness, should such things be made available by having been insulted.

This one wasn’t an insult, a passing comment phrased into what was likely genuine concern, but still the same thing she’s always heard. “It worries me that you don’t understand” was only a gentler phrasing of, “There’s something wrong with you.” Still another person saying that what is so natural to her could not be conceptualised into anything but wrong. In this case, wrong enough to inspire disturbance.

She trusted the man who commented, he’d shown himself to be good, reasonable and honest. He’d gone to great length in being kind, without meaning to he’d taught her the possibility for expanded social interaction. These things would have mandated that she investigate his statement further, if she hadn’t previously come to understand that she also trusted the comment itself.

She’d heard all her life that understanding certain things, primarily the power of words as they stood alone, was fundamental to an operating person. It followed that because she did not understand she was damaged in some way. She’d tried to learn, ferreting out the details of any situation to find commonalities that could be maneuvered into a standard rule, but the research proved to contain too many independent variables for a solid conclusion. For a time, she asked others, but her questions were met with anger or pity, never an answer.

Having been largely unsuccessful, with the truths found containing minimal opportunity for application, she stopped trying. She chose to approach the world as though it operated on her terms, but her wounded feelings wore off. They were replaced with knowledge that absent understanding, even as it was expressed with supporting reason, was no balm to those who would be hurt by a lack of necessary interpersonal protection in assessments.

She’s been called sociopathic by many, but the term doesn’t apply. There is no place in its definition for a girl who is so hurt by the emptiness seen on almost every sidewalk containing people who should be vividly alive. In her world, the people she passes are full. They aren’t flawless or fantasy driven, but they do stop occasionally to remember beauty. That reminder is written on every part of them, they walk differently than people she knows, they hold themselves with pride, limit themselves to strictly defined integrity, and love themselves for their devotion to those things. They are philosophically and psychologically consistent, and she sees no reasons there should be so few who look like them sneaking around reality.

It’s a beautiful world, created and maintained by the understandings that come naturally. To her those understandings immediately ring of truth, and lose nothing on closer inspection, but there is no place for such beliefs. They only set her demonstrably apart. She finds comfort in the idea that a minority of one can be right, but fully appreciates that such a minority must also be very careful. There is no honour in believing what is comfortable for the sake of that comfort, just as there is none in adjusting to what is uncomfortable for the sake of its discomfort. Belief in objective ethical guidelines dictates that she find truth and adhere to whatever moral obligation it demands.

She has done so. She’s hammered out a reasonably complete idea of rational operation, but one that is in conflict with the vast majority. Differences between her and others mean little in keeping with limited importance placed on anything excepting the honesty of a standard, but she is curious. The questions that were put away surface periodically to remind that they’ve not been answered.

Mostly her curiosity fades into a place kept for the mysteries she justifiably believes will never have answers, but intermittently, in easy company, it finds a place to enter her conversations. Once asked there is no retrieval, and so she moves ahead, hoping her mistake will become an answer that has proved elusive.

That has not yet been the case. This time the response was not impatient or angry, but it still carried with it understanding that there is no place for her. Being still now, and with the conceptual rejection that forced her to smile and leave quickly draining away, the ache becomes laughter. No irony lost at the idea of so hurtful a truth being housed in a comment about her inability to understand why words should be a source of pain.