Becoming Me.

Ok, I know, the title is not my own. I filched it from "Becoming Jane." But the reason I did that was because, I felt it only apt. After seeing the movie, I had that reassuring feeling that there are others in the world, or were there, who were also not understood. They also had no one to connect with. There were others and will be others who I can relate to. And there will be people who can relate to me.

Perhaps you'll roll your eyes after reading the previous paragraph, perhaps you shall be intrigued to read ahead. Perhaps your reaction will be neither. I will not justify this writing of mine, other than to myself.

There are so many many times I am bursting to share my views on something, but I find no channel for release. The need to bounce the ideas or views or whatever it may be, simply finds it's way obstructed, and either slowly dies, or proceeds to contemplate the virtues of schizophrenia. Surely, talking to self sometimes seems so much more useful than talking to people who will halfway not understand, and halfway make assumptions, and bothways make idiots of self and of me.

Not that I regret my quaint tastes or my cynical attitudes, or my aloofness that is so easily and readily construed as arrogance. I am very, very happy to break the mould, even if the creation is uncommon and uneven. Unfortunately, the vices of the soul deem the desideratum of intellectual company very becoming indeed. Unfortunately, such company is rarely, if at all, so attained.

I wonder, by how the notion of headstrong women and arrogant men is passionately pursued, whether it means to be of more use at all, than make up the essence of classic, evergreen fiction. To be read, enjoyed by the season, bound in volumes of rich leather, initialed and labeled in shiny gold letters, and then forgotten till some one finds comfort in those tomes again. Rarely by the same reader as before, I assure you.

Such stories are, I believe, never forgotten, once introduced to memory. The ingenuity and the powerful natures of the leads are so delicious, it is inclined to be etched, may not be in the fore, but in the least, some back-shelf of the vast expanses of the human mind, to be remembered in civil conversations and brief re-collections. Never Forgotten.

Are the realities of such delectable characters ever accepted? In all my life I have never once come across a self styled person resembling a Mr. Darcy, or Colonel Brandon, or here it comes, even Severus Snape. Not even in the same ballpark, not by the measure of a very long stick. Sometimes it makes me wonder if such characters are somehow the taboo, only to be read about, but never experienced. It is such a shame really. Chivalry is all but dead, romance reduced to physical entanglement of limbs and mouths, and men neither proud, nor prejudiced. Pride, dear reader, is somehow becoming the equivalent of arrogance. Looking down an aristocratic nose is mis-conceived as pride. Little wonder why people have confused hearts with souls and brief concurrence of ideas as being depth in understanding another individual.

Loneliness is the mistress of torture, and the lady of strong men's dreams. It's amusing, to the point of raised eyebrows, how young couples mistake an idea of concern toward the other, as love. I wager that most of these couples will not realise what they are really in, and when sufficient time passes, like the rock is reduced to sand in a desert, so will the boundaries defining concern, affection and true love be so indistinct, believing in either for the other is hardly an effort, given the slightest hint. Attraction, Nature's simple antidote to thought, works well indeed.

Singularly, I bring these up, for the reason that Finding ideal company is more than just a climb up the Himalayas, and so everyone settles for the next best thing, finding whatever company. I have had so many corrections to my train of thought recently, it had left me lost. I figured a good day or lifetime of introspection would be helpful to making such corrections. I found that a dozen years of talking made little effect on the listening powers of my closest friends. Other than gleaning correctly the information anyone could pull off in a hour's conversation at a local party, my "closest" friends had no idea who I was, or what my thoughts on common topic were, in the least. Even my next of kin, couldn't understand my responses, after 20 years of growing up together. I am truly, alone.

For a long time I walked around with questions threatening to drive me mad. Was I that much of an sociopath? Why do I enjoy the silence as a better company, to the sweet frivolities of friendships known. For one, people have become so adept at judging a book by the cover, that many think Playboy deserves a Pulitzer. It's maddening, infuriating, and blasphemous. How intellect is now restricted to proficiency, is simply annoying.

I do not, however, claim that I have knowledge of the pages within the bindings of great books, throughout the world. I do not. I barely have scratched the surface. But what I can claim with pride is that I have learned from all that I read. And I do not need the tag of fame to be attached to the author's name to compel reading their works. I have read several obscure books, short stories, and plain doodles on the back of a paper napkin, and I am sure that I can attest to a good writing style when I see one. It's unfortunate that I am in want of reasonable company, when there are so many millions of individuals around. I say nothing, however, of their individuality.

A wave of this, uncompromising need for a like minded , similarly inclined person, if at least one, is enough to make me run to the hills and live in solitude, with a handy multiple personality disorder, to satisfy the need to feel understood and equaled, in mind, heart and soul.