Finding the Others

I write because sometimes the way I see the world makes me feel a little alone.

Not dramatically alone. Not tragically alone. Just… slightly out of step. As though everyone else received a manual for how to move through the world and I somehow missed the meeting where it was handed out.

There are things I notice that other people don’t seem to talk about. Things I question that others seem perfectly comfortable accepting. There are moments when I feel the beauty of something so deeply it nearly hurts, and other moments when the noise of the world ~ the politics, the rushing, the endless arguments ~ makes me want to quietly step away from it all.

When you feel things like that often enough, you begin to assume you must simply be wired a little differently.

And maybe I am.

But I also know something else now.

When you write honestly about those feelings — without polishing them too much or trying to make them sound impressive ~ something interesting happens. Quietly, almost invisibly, people begin to appear.

Someone writes and says, “I thought I was the only one who felt this way.”

Another says, “You put into words something I’ve never quite been able to say.”

And slowly you realize that the isolation wasn’t quite what it seemed. The people who feel these things are out there. They’re just scattered. Living in their own corners of the world. Thinking their thoughts privately. Assuming they are the odd ones.

Writing is a way of lighting a small lantern.

You put a thought out into the darkness and see who notices the glow.

The funny thing is that I’m not trying to persuade anyone of anything when I write. I’m not trying to win arguments or convince people that my way of seeing the world is the right one. I’m simply describing what it feels like to stand where I stand and look out at things from here.

And if someone reading it feels a small sense of recognition — that quiet inner nod that says yes, I see that too ~ then something good has happened.

A little pocket of isolation dissolves.

Two strangers realize they are not quite strangers after all.

In a noisy world, that may be one of the most valuable things writing can do.

It helps the scattered ones find each other.