The round square

Okay so the title's corny but I don't know how else to describe me - a square person trying to fit into a round hole. A spiritual person trying to fit into a place that's anything but.

Everyone's content with living on the surface. Everyone goes ooh! I saw this great racer at the showroom! I had the best chicken kiev ever! She's the most gorgeous girl I ever laid me eyes on!

And what do I do? I have to go and ask myself why. Why should I care about the racer? Or if it was the best chicken kiev in town? Or about that beautiful face that will grow a thousand wrinkles 30 years from now?

If you think I'm thinking too much, relax. No thinking is involved. These things just strike my consciousness in the same way you notice that the sky is blue. You don't think about it. You just notice that it is. I just happen to notice more than the average dude. A whole lot more. Without any thinking.

So beyond shapes, colors and sounds, my senses are accustomed to picking up things behind the scenes. What you see as some desperate guy hitting on a hot chick, I see hormones, greed, lust, insatiable thirst. Its like seeing a house as its parts - bricks, wood, metal, plumbing, termites and all.

I have been told many times - take life as it comes. Don't read too much into things. Keep life simple and take things at face value. You like that polar bear? Go pet it. If it bites your arm off, well... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Why do you overthink everything. Just do it.

Well, its great that people care enough about me to give me such advice. Life would be a joy if we all took everything at face value. There will be no suspicion, no fights, no distrust, and everyone will be walking around with huge smiles on their faces.

And after the lovefest, everyone goes back to a home secured with 3 padlocks and an electronic alarm.

And that's the whole problem. You see, my mind picks up these little things and connects the dots, often without me telling it to. But I cannot say, "Dude, don't play with that candle. You'll burn your finger." I can only observe, watch the house burn down, and then tell myself, "Would it have been any different if I told him what I knew?"

Maybe you have a little bit of this too, perhaps being just as spiritual or having learnt out of experience. Trouble is, I didn't have much of a learning curve. Not unless I include my martial arts training and brief stint in social work. For as long as I can remember, my mind had instinctively looked through the packaging and linked cause and effect like it was on autopilot. As you can imagine, peer pressure at school didn't get my goat as much as it did my friends.

But the heightened sensitivity does put me on constant alert. Imagine riding into a battlezone everyday and being conscious of every single arrow pointing at you. Again, no thinking. Your mind just notes it and files it away. It effects how you conduct yourself. You go racing down the highway at 100 miles an hour with a friend but you put your selt belt on. You splurge on treats but you keep your credit cards at home. You join your friends for happy hour but you order a coke.

Like I said, I'm a round square. Does that make me an untameable freak? Sure, I guess. ^_^