It’s a survival thing. When a person is an Outsider — someone who doesn’t “belong” to a group of one sort or another for whatever reason — there is a kind of invisible barrier that rises up between them and the people who do belong to that group. It’s a very real divide. “Same” is good, the prevailing culture code says; “different” not so much. It’s a built-in herd thing, I suppose. Every group has a culture code. Every group…
The wise guys tell us that most of the phenomena in the world are the results of consensus and moving energy. They are part of the larger dance that includes everything and everybody. How you see it is filtered through your own memories and the patterns of behavior built up by past experiences. But then, one day you look up and notice that the world-as-you-know-it has changed so much you don’t recognize anything any more. What do you do then?
