Eye Wander Through the Crowd

I'm a partial nut.

I admit it.  

I've driven myself crazy with 'what if's', and 'why's', and 'what the fuck's' since my early twenties.  There were times I should have been wearing white in a room of padded walls, I'm sure.

Other people didn't make me crazy until just recently. I'm not

sure why that changed.  I guess even doormats get worn out.  Who knows?

I'm not blaming anyone who used me, or who took advantage, who I didn't invite to, first.  I don't claim to have been victimized, or abused.  In fact, I don't claim anything at all.  I think my interactions with others have been quite common, and fall in the realm of what's deemed 'average'.  I've done everything to others that has ever been done to me.

I consider myself very successful when it comes to blending in.

Unseen, please 

The doormat reference is made because I worked hard at my blending, and my method of doing it, just like everyone does.  I even had to rehearse at times.  Blending in is difficult when you don't know why you're doing it, or if the value of doing so eludes you.

It's exhausting trying to go unnoticed when deep down you can't believe that no one has noticed you. 

When that's the case, as it was for me, you have to dig deep to convince yourself you actually value what you perceive to be of value to others, when you don't.  You have to dig even deeper to appear satisfied that you've done so.

The truth is, no one goes unnoticed because they agree to blend in.  They go unnoticed when they're afraid to stand out.

I have lived my life in fear of almost everything.

Be Seen, please

The crowd isn't searching for the piece that keeps it together.  It's not interested in what it has in abundance.  It's searching for what will transform it, for what will encourage something other than it is.

I think it wants to be instructed on how to maintain its shape while allowing those who provide that shape, to find home.

The crowd simply wants a new way to be defined.
One that will protect it's essence.

It may even deserve that.

But it needs help from those who make it up, from those who need it to remain unseen.  It can't dispose of the name it was given until it's allowed to reclaim the purpose it was ordained.  If that's to occur, the ones hoping to remain anonymous will have to crawl out into the open, and be exposed.

Crowd of One

To be clear, going unnoticed has nothing to do with being part of a crowd.  The unnoticed among any community can remain that way by maintaining the belief that there is nothing notable about them.  If that's the belief you entertain, what are you left with when you're alone?

It's not surprising then, for those like I was, to discover that when you throw yourself in front of anyone who approaches, and suggest they wipe their feet, they often agree to do so.  Contact with the muddied soles of a stranger can be preferable to no contact at all, especially when you believe that's all you're worth.

It's also less terrifying than who you're left with when you're left all alone.

If the crowd is only a crowd to insure that, can you blame it for wanting to change?

If, like me, you spent a good portion of your life demanding that people love you when you wouldn't love yourself, you may have concluded that any absence of love must be the fault of those trying to provide it.

Before you can be seen by others you need to learn how to see them.

Before you can request that others love you, you must love yourself so deeply that you'll never need to make such a request of anyone.

A good way to learn to do that is in the study of basic grammar.

I or Eye?

  First, replace the pronoun, self-centered 'I', with the more general noun, and synonym, 'eye'.  Whereas the wandering 'I' do is self-absorbed, and narrow, the wandering my 'eye' does is outward, and expansive.

If it wanders in the right direction it will find You, whoever You are.

If it stops there, and remains attentive, it will find instruction on how to become the focus of the adoring eye of another.

When you take the opportunity to focus the adoration you desire into the adoration you cast upon others you change the purpose the crowd fulfills, and the reason you enter it.

The definition the crowd is thirsting for is the one that changes it's function.  The crowd still wants to be one, it just wants you to need it for a different purpose.

It doesn't want to be a place people enter to hide, or to blend. It wants to be a place that's entered when you can't find what you need on your own.

It wants to be the place where eye wanders outward, and finds others in need.
It wants to be the place I enter to be seen, and to see.
It wants to be the place that refuses the status quo by becoming the place where all is seen, not just what's similar.

It wants to be the place you enter when you feel alone, so you can be reminded that you're not.

Dragons  'Demons'