When I was between 10 and 13, my dad started to raplidly collect a series of dead-end telecommunications technologies. That’s not fair, it was only the one IBM beige landline phone with a screen that could tilt to make the basement flourscent lights glare across the cheap plastic a little worse.¹ But the big thing we got was a dial-up internet connection which I fell in love with immediately, particularly the Yahoo Kidz services which lead me to the rest of Yahoo, including the chats. Precious little wizlet I was, I would hang out in the most mature sounding rooms possible, mainly the default “Philosophy” room.

There’s an exchange I remember having in that chat room so many years ago. I was, like I said, probably only a little older than 10. Maybe even 6th grade? I feel like remembering being heavily influenced by the Ender’s Shadow series that ran parallel to Ender’s game and seeing myself, the young little shit that I was, as so smart that it was obvious that I also wan’t human. That maybe I, like the genetically modified boy in those books, was a new fork in the path that is human evolution. And I took those thoughts and brought them right to the poor default Philosphy chat on Yahoo in the year 2000 or something. And the adults in there who were discussing actual philophy took a moment to chastise me. I mean, I was a kid being obnoxious in their chat room, I’d do it to me too these days. And probably not as kindly as they did. But they told me in no short terms that what I was saying was ridiculous and out of some sort sci-fi wish.² And they were right. That sort of talk didn’t belong there, and I didn’t belong in their space polluting it with fanciful ideas of being some sort of other-being.

But even then, even twenty five years ago, I felt different. I knew I wasn’t “normal”. Sure, I was smart for an 11 year old.³ But what sticks with me now, looking back, is how I felt. How I still feel. Like I don’t belong. I was sort of right too, I am some kind of other-being. An alien. A skinwalker, pretending to be human and only mostly succeeding. And there’s an ever present feeling that someday there will be someone who can see the light pouring through the seams in my human suit and expose me for what I am: Not Like Them. A kind of imposter syndrome that goes further than just not believing I am capable of my job, but that I’m also incapable of being a son, brother, friend or father. All because I am fundamentally different.

And the task of the past 3 or 4 years of my life has been to refute the other side of this. I am different. It’s just not as bad as I though. I am in fact human, and there are many, many, many people like me. I am a person who is capable of feeling and thought and reason. We’re all faking it, I’m just doing it a lot more often than most. I am not fundamentally different⁴, I’m just a guy. And since I am a person who is capable of pain and grief and loss, I should let myself have those, feel those, struggle with those things more than I have been letting myself in the past. That othering myself as hard as I was isn’t actually dealing with my own problems, it’s running away from them by means of denying myself my own humanity. And buddy, that does not do well on the ol’ soul.

I don’t know what I meant to get out of putting this all out here, but it certainly feels better having written it out than not. But maybe it will help someone else. I don’t know. Here’s to hoping.