I agree, but it's not really the people I dislike, I know they can be better. It's the collective that I dislike, because it makes them the way they are. I believe an individual can be good and fair and reasonable. I believe that the collective is always evil, I think it brings out the worst in people, and it corrupts them, often irrevocably. I can feel this within me as well when I am in the midst of the collective, it's like an evil aura around them, I feel what they feel. When I am away from them, I feel free and the evil drains away and dissipates.

One day, I'd like to buy my own farm, perhaps on an island or in an isolated area. I think this is the only place where I can live in peace.

Thats interesting and I think you are so currect. I think that is a big problem I see. I think the majority are cruel and unreasonable in thinking. I have seen the very things you speak of.

I dream of a day of living off the land and having a log cabin in the woods. I would love it.

Thanks for the chubby replies Telengard, and Frank.
Well, this "was" going on for past one and a half years. The issues
were "petty", so much "petty" that you might even laugh if I tell you.
I used to tell them, "I don't need your advises on these matters, if
I need your help I'll call you. Ok". Later on "Let me live my life",
and then "Can you mind your own business?"!
Their replies, "Yes, yes, but we want you to be happy, you know. See how
your cousin does the same, you should do it too!".
and the cycle went on.

Then one day I thought that I have got only one life and if I spend that
in keeping others happy when will I live! I made the decision, and now
the peace prevails.

There is no free lunch as they say. I am always amused by those people who
are always dying to meet their families. I am virtually alone.

"normal" is a person who follows what majority of the people (in
his society) do. As soon as he stops following them or even devises
a different method of doing x, he is regarded "abnormal".

Quite easy for some to say "Be yourself, and live the way you want".
But, there are still some places in the world where with this
attitude all a person is bound to get is "solitude", "frowns", and
adjectives like "crazy" (even from the near and dear ones).

P.S.
I am curious to know BTW, how many regulars here have visited India. ;-)

No I wouldn't laugh. I've been there.

I would consider this "controlling" behavior. Like dripping water, it does not so much overwhelm as it erodes. The size of the issue doesn't matter; it's the control.

I have to give silvyus_06 credit. You got a whack of us asking ourselves the same questions and more. Nothing like sharing a little self examination here at LQ.

It is fine to be "smart".

Knowing oneself is "smart" is fine.

It is when superiority raises its ugly head lies the danger.

Intelligence tempered with humility, compassion, and patience is greatness.

Well said.

Some of the people who irritate me the most are those who look down on folks don't make as much money as they do, even though they do honest work.

Honest work, whether it's in the copy shop or the executive suite, is still honest work.

Frankly, it seems as if these days there's more likely to be honest work in the copy shop than in the executive suite.

Is there a way to make them understand? I really wish to
have a family like other people have. My cousins are always
dying to meet their parents. My parents tell me that I should
learn something from them, and I reply that they should learn
something from my cousin's parents.

Well You are definitely better then what I was, Now I am having a hard time learning programming
.

I was consider a geek when I was young. I build and fixed computers for my family and friends and even made some money doing it. I also fixed vcrs and other electronics.

But I wasn't smart enough to do programming. I always manage to grasp the basics and a little bit of the intermediate topics but never beyond that. Bash scripting is the only easy language I have ever understood. People say python is easy to learn but I haven't investigated it yet.

BTW, if people think you're weird because you can do things they can't; they're just probably jealous

Thank you, good sir. Thy lips produce naught but truth.

It never occurred to me ... (ahem) thirty-five years ago ... that "programming was hard." Computers, at that time, were located behind locked doors. But, I was given access to an account, on a computer with an astonishing 128K of memory, that was shared by 32 users at a time, and that was attached to a 2MB(!!) hard disk drive that looked like a slightly miniaturized washing machine. And, with that, I figured everything else out for myself ... in a pursuit that has always been my profession and that, I am happy to say, still fascinates me.

(And it is still, also, sometimes "sucking hard." I had a not-so-good day today...)

There's only one thing, looking back, that I truly regret: my parents, well intentioned though they were, told me that I was the smartest kid in school. Having no more than the customary scruples and worldly experience of a run of the mill sixth-grader, I not only believed that, but I told it to anyone who would listen.



It unfortunately took me a long time to realize that -est has no real place in human experience. Life is not a competition.

Looking back, also, I realize now just what a dreadful time I was having with "adolescent depression." It was, I think, positively clinical, and yet, since I was (of course) fully inside of that experience, I did not realize what was happening. I very nearly died ... killed myself. (And what a waste, I personally think, that would have been.) Fortunately, I didn't pull the trigger and I did keep growing up. But, I still do remember how very different my looking-back recollections of those times are, from the actual experience of having lived it at that time.

And that's one of the reasons why I have spent so much time volunteering on suicide-prevention hotlines.

You're doing right man

Yep, the title of "smartest" is hugely stressful. I'm thankful that my parents have always emphasized humility and enjoying what little life we have over some silly toxic prestige title.

I have huge respect for what you do here.

People called me geek or nerd with computers. I rather be called geek or nerd than weird because people sometimes associate the word weird with gay.