I feel life with intensity. And I see how others might have their own feelings about life. It’s easy for me to be empathetic.

At the same time, it’s more often than not, easy for me to see life as it is.

Example: given news that is sad, I don’t often express sadness in my tone or physical behavior. Instead, I express it with words. Perhaps, “oh wow, that’s sad. I imagine it’s tough for…. to deal with that.”

Example: at a funeral people discuss the life of someone who lived. The stories people tell are moving. For me, I’m able to find humor or happiness. My reaction is the inverse of what’s expected.

Example: if others are stressed with life, my reaction is to accept that others have stress and they’ll work through it because they’re strong enough to do it. That’s not always the reaction people want me to have. My reaction comes off cold.

Yet I am not cold. I feel very deeply.

Perhaps I’m getting better at seeing an emotion as a temporary chemically-driven experience. And perhaps I’m getting better at seeing the moment simply as the moment. And perhaps that ability to be content with myself in this world as it is comes at a cost — I don’t always follow the social contract you and I implicitly sign.

Reflecting now… I believe contentment is worth the cost.

The alternative, to conform more to social expectations doesn’t yield valuable outputs for me. I’m often the “weird”, “difficult”, or “interesting” one in a group. Conforming to norms and obligations requires me to give up what I’ve worked to build up in my self — a sense of contentment with who I am. The challenge is finding ways to navigate.

Thus I arrive at my conclusion — perhaps part of the war that is life is determining who you are, how you move through it, while navigating the outward complexities of our shared existence.