Life in Reverse

Wake up goddamn it!!!

I think I've realized the disconnect. I seem to be living life in reverse. It seems to me that everyone goes about their life looking for love and another person to spend their life with. Wife, kids, a big house, financial security, and so forth. Once they get settled, and get all of those distractions dealt with, they begin the road to self discovery. I would say the most important road. It's an endeavor they undertake with varying degrees of dedication and effort. Many times it is a completely unconscious process. Different people meet with different levels of success, but that seems to be the most common arc.
I've been going about my life the other way around, and that seems to have landed me in opposition with the rest of my species. It is not a malicious opposition, but it seems to keep me from finding an equal footing or common ground with my people. I am years behind my compatriots in the realm of the physical. Wife? No. Kids? No? Financial security, big house, white picket fence, "The American Dream"? Take a wild guess. You may sense a big hairy but lurking around the corner...
BUT!
That does not mean I am unhappy. Quite the contrary.
Contentment? Confidence? Knowledge and love of self? Knowledge of who and what is important to me? Yes on all counts. Which is not to say that the world is my oyster. Far from it. I'm not even close to achieving all of the physical comforts, achievements, and successes that my peers have. It makes life difficult at times, but life can be difficult. It's a journey. That's one of the things I've realized that many of my peers won't until they are older and wiser, and have been through all of the psychological and philosophical hazards that I have traversed in through the past years.
I've felt the rift between me and the rest of the world most of my life, but it was always vague. It frequently made me feel freakish, and always made me feel different. Within recent years I realized the source of the rift. The differences in approach, philosophy, and priorities. Within the past few hours I came to the realization that I have been very judgmental about the entire situation, while being very resentful of everyone else's judgments. Just today I realized the foolishness of this. My judging engendered bitterness, which served only to widen the rift between me and the rest of the world, especially women. I've been very bitchy about the fact that everyone else's priorities and philosophies flow in a direction opposite my own. I guess because it made me feel so freakish, because I felt I had NOTHING common with my fellow man. Now I know we're all travelling the same road, I (and the few whose follow a similar approach) are just in traffic in the opposite direction.

This bares great significance on another impactful, recent realization. This rift has been the main impetus behind my monumental quest to find female companionship. A few days ago it occurred to me that I had given up on women. Not consciously at first. Initially I started keeping women at arms-length as a self-defense mechanism. There are so many women who have been damaged by shitty boyfriends, judgmental parents, and phony friends, that the only possible outcome was that they would eventually damage me, possibly beyond repair. Similar points can be made about most men. Which is why most people in general hide behind a veneer of bullshit. The thickness may vary, but almost everyone has a protective shell. However the vast rift between the world's pursuit of the physical and my pursuit of the spiritual (for the complete absence of a better word), made the situation appear so dismal that I just gave up without even realizing it. This does say a lot about the bleakness of the situation, because I am not a quitter. I have endured through some tough situations. I live with disease everyday, yet I tackle each day head-on with a smile and a fire for living.
The situation is bleak, but not entirely hopeless. Most men and women have their heads firmly ensconced in their asses. I don't want what they want, and they don't want what I want, at least that's what I thought. As it turns out we all want the same things. We just go about it different ways. I am not currently pursuing what women are currently pursuing, and vice versa. But ultimately we all have the same needs as humans. We all want love and happiness, and the companionship of someone who totally understands. It sounds cheesy and lame, but kiss my ass. You're fooling yourself if you've got blood running through your veins and you claim you don't want this. You're not fooling me, but you're definitely fooling yourself. That is the common ground we all share. The key is I need to stop judging women for their approach. They in turn need to stop judging me for mine. Basically each of us needs to get the fuck out of our own way and put down the bullshit, not to put too fine a point on it. Get over yourself, at least make the effort. I'll do the same. Make the journey full speed ahead, otherwise your just spinning your wheels.
There is hope. That is why I have to give you an alternate version of my standard salutation as we head toward a new day.
Good Morning.