Different……….

I think our whole society tries to stabilize itself by starting out to destroy sensitivity to incoherence starting with very young children. If people could see the vast incoherence that is going on in society they would be disturbed and they would feel the need to do something. If you’re not sensitive to it you don’t feel disturned and you don’t feel you need to do anything.
I remember an instance, a daughter was telling her mother, “this school is terrible, the teacher is terrible, very inconsistent, doing all sorts of crazy things,” and so on. Finally the mother was saying, “You’d better stop this–in this house the teacher is always right.” Now she understood that the teacher was wrong obviously, but the message was, it was no use. Even the message may have been right in some sense, but still it illustrates that the predicament is that in order to avoid this sort of trouble, starting with very young children, we are trained to become insensitive to incoherence. If there is incoherence in our own behavior, we thereby also become insensitive to it.

—David Bohm, seminar on Thought and Dialogue in Ojai, November 4, 1989

For as long as I remember I have always felt different to most people, not special or gifted, just different. My perspective of the world even as a child has seemingly been unlike others. I remember being in a history lesson at school being very concerned about the then Cold War between Russia and the West and being admonished by the teacher for not concentrating. I was outraged, how could an adult ( who I had been told was to be respected and obeyed due to their standing ) not be concerned or apparently give a thought to the plight of the world.
There have been many instances ( and still are ) where I have seen the world from a completely different standpoint to the majority. I seem to have some degree of empathic ability ( I can often feel others emotions, thoughts, intentions,history,motivations etc ) although this is deemed as science fiction by society as a whole. Nevertheless here I am receiving subtle information about others somewhat unbidden.
I believe that for many people who perceive the world differently there is a tendency to grow up invalidated to some extent, this can lead to low self esteem and anxiety as we sometimes feel we must be faulty in some way. Some will give up their unique perspective and replace it with a more socially acceptable one in order to not feel isolated or alone. Some, like myself do not seem to be able to do this. Despite years of feeling largely alone in the world in terms of shared ideology I am now extremely happy that I stuck with it.

The truth is many of us are different in many ways, this however should be acknowledged and nurtured not denied by a societal construct that does not allow for individual interpretations of events but would rather hide them away or deny their very existence . The reason being the threat to the status quo, the fear of descent into chaos if people are trusted to make free decisions without censure.

Life as perceived by most people is not coherent but rather than hide or bury this perception we should perhaps push ourselves so as we can arrive at a mote mutual reality.

“As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.” 
― C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” 
― C.G. Jung