The Tuxedo and the Brown Shoes

I've always felt like I was an oddity, like I didn't fit in. I think that people look at me and think, "That's just some normal guy." But a few look closer and are obliged to find the depths of my consciousness to hover past a point that they might understand.

I guess my point is that, more often than not, people don't get what I find to be insightful, useful, or amusing. It's really very similar to the problem with secrets: If no one knows you know a secret, is it really all that cool, and at what point does it become little more than a burden? I oftentimes damn myself for developing a world view that lends itself to seeing things in a very odd light, because the more I please myself with how askew I can push my perceptions of the world around me, the more I feel isolated. With increasing frequency, I find myself feeling more and more like Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football: great, but in the entirely wrong context. I feel like I don't fit in most of the time, knowing that the wound is entirely self-inflicted.

I remember this commercial for Johnny Carson Tonight Show videos, in which a comedian remarks, "Do you ever feel like the world's a tuxedo party and you're a pair of brown shoes?" And everbody in the studio audience, including Johnny, laughed hysterically at the thought. I remember sitting there stone-faced, because that's exactly what I feel like all the time. I'm confounded by the world around me, and I wish I could get more people to see what I see. I'm not sure what end it might serve, but it would sure make me feel better about myself.