Who People See

“Human tragedies: We all want to be extraordinary and we all just want to fit in.Unfortunately, extraordinary people rarely fit in.”

-- Sebastyne Young, author

What do people see when they look at you?  Well, what they see is who they see, right?  Not necessarily so.  Most people put on a mask before they leave the house.  They put on makeup, brush their hair, shave, bathe, and usually choose an outfit that says, "Look at me."  So, who is really underneath all that fluff?  The answer is sometimes frightening and can explain why these people go to such lengths to hide their reality.

Military Intelligence makes it easy to hide who you are, as it demands secrecy about most everything you hear, read, say, or do.  I had to laugh as Zed describes the "Men in Black":  "You'll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You're a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We're 'them.' We're 'they.' We are the Men in Black."  Military intelligence wasn't near that bad, but sometimes you began to wonder.  We would joke about using the restroom and accidentally flushing some classified bodily substance.  No, not quite that bad.

As a child, I never fit in.  I was a small pinball.  I wanted to fit in with other children but was usually too busy pinging off the walls and bumpers in the game of life.  I'm not sure my parents understood attention deficit or hyperactivity.  It explains, though, why I was an only child - who could handle two of me, and who would want to?  Even the other children couldn't handle me, so I found myself often excluded, the last to be picked if picked at all.  I was a troubled handful of attitude headed for a juvenile facility if I didn't clean up my act.  My saving grace was my own early understanding of what I was.  I didn't realize, at the time, that I was about to do something which would redirect my life - I put a lid on the volcano.  I learned to focus.

“We're so quick to cut away pieces of ourselves to suit a particular relationship, a job, a circle of friends, incessantly editing who we are until we fit in.”

-- Charles de Lint, writer

A motorcycle accident forced me to be still for a couple of months while in traction.  After that... Marijuana.  Well, it did calm me down.  I'm not sure anyone ever broached the topic of medication with my parents.  While everyone else was stoned, what I discovered was a calm which everyone else referred to as "normal."  Whoa!  Was that an "Aha!" moment.  So this is what everyone else was like, normally.  Drugs were never my "thing" and I knew marijuana was going to be a temporary "fix,"  so to speak.  Now that I had experienced what "normal" was, it became easy for me to replicate the feeling with meditation and sheer force of will.  I found I could "fit in" and was able to graduate from high school.  I no longer juggled four or five, or ten, ideas in my head at one time.  I entered college with a different mind, a focussed mind.  I could now place the many ideas into neat, orderly files, and work them separately.  The volcano was still there, however, under pressure.

“People who fit don’t seek. The seekers are those that don’t fit.”

-- Shannon L. Alder, author

Who you are and who you display is a simple matter for most people wishing to fit in.  When you bottle yourself up and contain energy for any great length of time, things can change.  Elements subjected to great pressure will slowly change into something else.  I found it easier to be someone else depending on who I was around.  I would fit in through lying by omission, by not revealing who I really was, inside my head.  Are you this, or that, or do you really care?  Who are you going to be today?  What mask are you going to wear?  What behavior will be displayed?  Introvert, extrovert, sociopath, or deviant?  Will you act "normal" or will you make it up as you go?  And there's always the ever popular:  What will the voice in your head tell you, and will there only be one?  "Yes. No. Yes. No. You started it. No, I didn't. Will you two shut the hell up? I'm trying to think, here! See?  Now we've pissed him off."

“Me, I trust people who show you what freaks they are. It's the ones who blend in that ya gotta watch out for.”

-- Hope Larson, illustrator, cartoonist

During 65 years of life, much of it was lived being someone I wasn't, much of it was lived "fitting in" by living a lie, mostly of omission, because you train yourself to forget what you said, read, heard, and did, on a daily basis.  Everything was classified, and if you weren't sure, it was.  I filed almost everything in a three-combination vault with varying levels of security and access.  Sometimes you simply bagged the entire day into a drawer, and you'd lose pieces of your life and yourself in the process.  You are no longer getting lost in the crowd as much as you're getting lost in yourself.   Who are people really seeing?  When your life begins to fall apart, instead of the volcano blowing up, you exert such great control until it collapses under its own intense pressure, like some huge star which bypasses exploding in favor os simply collapsing into a massive black hole.  The gravity of the situation is overwhelming.  You look in a mirror one morning and realize a stranger is staring back at you.

“Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.”

-- Rick Warren, pastor, author

Sooner or later a person has to let the pressure out and let some light in.  You have to stop being what you aren't, stop omitting people, and start letting people experience who you really are.  You need to start living for those things which have eluded you in the past, like love and friends.  I have always been a square peg masquerading as a round one, never quite fitting in the hole I'd chosen and always hoping no one would notice.

I spent the majority of my adult life analyzing classified information and spitting out alternate realities, as I saw it, to planners, policymakers, and commanders.  I read, what I considered, faulty conclusions from other government agencies and would put forth my own "humble" alternate possibilities.  I was pretty good at what I did.  But, when you've spent most your life spinning the truth, gaming the people around you, messing with their heads, well... I always figured it takes one to know one.  Do this long enough and you risk losing the truth of who you are and do something really stupid, like destroy your marriage.  Sooner or later you realize you have to stop before you aren't capable of separating fact from fiction.  I don't play poker anymore.  I play very few games, as a matter of fact, and I lost my taste for marriage.  Sometimes winning simply isn't worth the cost to your soul, or someone else's.

“Take someone who doesn't keep score,who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,who has not the slightest interest evenin his own personality: he's free.”

-- Rumi Jalalu'l-Din (1207-1273), poet, Islamic scholar, theologian

What people see isn't always who they think they see, and who they think they see isn't always what others choose to show them.  When we strip away our masks we are, ultimately, what and who we truly are.  We need to understand that what and who we truly are is not a bad thing, as long as we're good people.  Don't worry so much about fitting in, just be a good and kind person, even to those who aren't good and kind to you.  Everything else will work itself out, sooner or later.  Don't be in such a rush to live, or the lessons of life will get lost in all the bullshit which surrounds us.

Be happy with who and what you are.  If people can't handle that, isn't it going to be their loss more than yours?  It should be.  As for those people who don't treat you right, I have found that treating them better usually pisses them off, and what fun that is.

“When I was young, I used to wish I would fit in…
I’m glad I didn’t get my wish.”

-- Steve Maraboli, behavioral scientist, researcher, speaker

Editor's Note

(Re: disclaimer cum "get out of jail free" card)

Before you go getting your panties in a bunch, it is essential to understand that this is just an opinion site and, as such, can be subjected to scrutiny by anyone with a differing opinion. It doesn't make either opinion any more right or wrong than the other. An opinion, presented in this context, is a way of inciting others to think and, hopefully, to form opinions of their own, if they haven't already done so. This is also why, occasionally, I will present an "opinion" just to stir an emotional pot. Where it may sound like I agree with the statements made, I'm more interested in getting others to consider an alternate viewpoint. 

It is my fervent hope that we keep open and active minds when reading opinions and while engaging in peaceful and constructive discussion, in an arena of mutual respect, concerning those opinions put forth. After over twenty years with military intelligence, I have come to believe engaging each other in this manner and in this arena is the way we will learn tolerance and respect for differing beliefs, cultures, and viewpoints.

We all fall from grace, some more often than others; it is part of being human. God's test for us is what we learn from the experience, and what we do afterward.

Pastor Tony spent 22 years with United States Air Force Intelligence as a planner, analyst, briefer, instructor, and senior manager. He spent 17 years, following his service career, working with the premier, world renowned, Institutional Review Board helping to protect the rights of human subjects involved in pharmaceutical research. Ordained 1n 2013 as an "interfaith" minister, he founded the Congregation for Religious Tolerance in response to intolerance shown by Christians toward peaceful Islam. As the weapon for his war on intolerance he chose the pen, and wages his "battle" in the guise of the Congregation's official online blog, The Path, of which he is both author and editor. "The Path" offers a vehicle for commentary and guidance concerning one's own personal, spiritual, path toward peace and the final destination for us all. He currently resides in Pass Christian, Mississippi, where he volunteers as lead Chaplain and Chaplain Program Liaison, at the regional medical center.