Interiors

I'm met with an interesting conundrum: why do I love humanity, but not humans?

Let me clarify that statement a bit. I love plenty of humans. All in a platonic sense, but love nonetheless. In addition to those individuals, I also love the concept of humanity. The abstraction that goes something like "the condition or quality of being human." God, I guess I'm even romantically in love with, even obsessed with, that idea. It's the very reason I'm so interested in philosophy and spiritualityy: I'm absolutely enthralled by the human condition.

But then come along the "humans" lacking the "ity," and I immediately shut down. My skin turns to rock, and suddenly I don't want anything to do with "them." They may be a part of humanity, but they're not the beautiful, abstract, perfect whole. They're the pieces.

Even those that I love I know so little of. I know the members of my nuclear family well, but not completely. Even they leave a big question mark where I feel like I should have answers. Then there are my friends. I don't know what any of my friends do outside of school. I don't know what half of them are passionate about. I don't know what most of them believe about life, reality, and that bag of chips. And I'd love to. I'd love to know their humanity, to know what makes them tick.

But then the friends come, and I become afraid of their humanness, not because they lack humanity, but because they have so much of it. I once again go into my hermit hole, into my mind, and pretend that's all there is to life. "It's too much work to know them, I just can't do it. I don't even know myself!" I think. No wonder I'm an "introvert." The utter work of getting to know someone scares me, like nothing else does.

And there I stand, on this chasm between two worlds. I love humanity, but completely fear humans. I guess that's what makes me weird. I guess that's my personal neurosis that gives me a little flavor. Makes me interesting.

I suppose that is the karma of my present condition, the knot I've created for myself that I now must unravel.

Namaste.