038 Lonely World

I'm finding myself lately having to break out of a box, a mental pattern of perception, which, I'm afraid, quite a lot of us are prone to. Especially when we're younger, we tend to only seek to impress a certain group of people, usually the age group that is the same as ours (or slightly above, when we were young teens), and later in life it becomes the prestigeous, those who, we figure, might have something to offer to us, people whose acquaintance we benefit from. Sometimes it's as if that group, our mental "target group," is the only one that even exists for us. There may be other humans, like our parents, teachers, etc., but they're either necessary evils or a downright nuisance and pain in the behind.

I dare say that in this day & age, where the media have mass-hypnotized us into thinking what is acceptable and what is not in a manner that would have let Hitler grow pale with envy, it is a rare youngster who doesn't care at all whether the person they talk to is "hip," in the accepted age group, or at least somewhere near the accepted range.

What is really shocking for me, though, is, how old I've had to become in order to even let it dawn on me just how much this kind of group think had affected me, and to realize just how sickening it was.

On the other hand, I'm grateful, because I probably wouldn't have been mature enough to handle the shock at a younger age, the shock that you get when you realize just how wide-spread this game has become.

We used to think that only snobs or racists would act in discriminating ways toward their slightly different fellowmen, but - gosh, that was in the 70s, maybe the 80s.

Waking up in the 21^st century means that all of a sudden those who were discriminated and looked down on in the past have developed their own snobbishness, their own class-consciousness, their own Nazi-ism, and just about every group tends to discriminate every other group.

You must give the Devil credit for being one hell of a smart b…… to have achieved this feat! Especially, because he managed to make this very game most popular among God's own people - or those who deem themselves such.

The end result of all this is, that the world is becoming a lonier place by the hour, as there are ever more little groups developing who will discriminate all the other ones, but especially those who don't belong to any of them, those who would just like to be themselves, & give a damn about clichés & cliques.

May God have mercy and turn our hearts of stone into real ones of flesh & blood, so that we may once again be able to hear our neighbor's heartcry and be able to look him in the eye and see a living soul there, instead of trying to analyze: "Which group do you belong to? Are you acceptable? Hip or uncool? Can I take the risk to be seen associating myself with you or not?..." Or, "Is s/he a potential customer or going to benefit me in some other way?"

I'm sure grateful for those I have come across in my life who have accepted me for the totally unhip and uncool dude that I am, and I'm looking forward to returning that favor to many a poor lost soul who doesn't know where the heck they belong in this lost & lonely world...