Well, I go back home to my beautiful and wonderous ocean tomorrow. I miss it so much. *sighs*

I have been up here for just a skoshe over a week. It's not bad up here, it's just.... up here. by walking out the front door of the house, I can see 9 or more houses so close that I could actually throw a rock and make it land close to each yard. *sighs* I hate the city.

Of course, Charles would argue that I really hated people, not the city. I disagree. Not because he's wrong, but because I don't want to wear a label like that. *smirks*

I don't actually hate people, I just hate most of the people that I've met/talked to/seen. And, It's not actual hate, rather more a subdued form of extreme distaste.

Yes, distaste, rather than hatred.

I hate avacadoes. I have an extreme distaste for fish. I would eat fish before I would eat avacadoes. I would eat shit before I would eat avacadoes.

Well, okay, so I wouldn't eat shit before avacadoes. BUT, if it were a choice between bugs and avacadoes, I'd sign up for chocolate covered grass hoppers any day. No exageration at all.

I HATE Avacadoes!

But, anyway, back to my pseudo point for this evening's rant.

People/cities and whether or not I hate them.

I don't actually hate cities or people. I do hate some of the things people do. Such as: murdering, raping and beating other people. I kinda frown on that choice of activity.

But do I hate people in general? No. I would say that Deus-Atrox hated people in general. I don't. I just have a distaste for them.

Most people in this world, in general, are a waste of my time. they occupy MY streets, they take up space at MY hang outs and they get drunk and disorderly in MY proximity. I don't like that.

When walking down the street, unless someone is calling me out for a fight (insulting, jeering, singing a rousing chorus of Fat Bitch, Fat Bitch, Bitch, Bitch, Bitch) then I smile and nod, or wave, or simply let them pass me by with the bare minimum of acknowledgement of their existance.

If you were one of the former variety, however, you would get either a condescending stare (and then a diary entry written about you) or ignored completely, as if you didn't exist.

I do believe (and have long believed, just haven't put it into words much) that it's not a distaste for people, but a desire to share everything in this world with the wonderful people who are out there, and subsequent to having negative and hurtful reactions, I simply choose to ignore the situation in the future.

I really don't like it when people act like shits. IE: Fat Bitch, et al. I like it when people are nice. I have met a number of wonderful and lovely people in this world, unfortunately, those wonderful ones were liberally interspersed with ickies.

Charles is right, in a way. Though the word "hate" is too strong.

I need to connect. I can't just walk down the street and ignore everyone else. I can't live in the city because in order to do so one needs the mentality which allows them to be all alone in the huge crowd. They need to have that "alone in a sea of bodies" type thing. I don't have that.

I don't like crowds, they scare me. It's sensory overload for me. I pick up on personalities and intentions far too easily.

I don't mean I know what other people think and who they are, but I do mean that when I'm in a crowd of people, it's ..... well.....

think of it this way (*grrs at her shift key yet again*)

Imagine that you have ultra sensitive hearing. I mean, from a hundred yards away, you can hear a whispered conversation word for word. Then, place yourself in the crowd at a Metallica concert.

That's largely what it's like for me to walk through a crowd of people. I a complete onslaught of emotions from those people. I feel what they feel so intently it's as if it were coming from within me.

I don't know how into the whole "psychic" thing you readers are. I'm not into the whole Tarot/visions thing at all... I'm not keen on that. BUT, I do believe that there are a lot of psychic abilities that we simply don't use.

I remember hearing once, a long time ago, that we humans, in general, only use about 7% of our brains. Thus, if there's another 93%, perhaps levitation, telekenisis (sp) and other psychic things are real and possible for everyone... they just don't tap into it.

Regardless, the point...

I have an empathic ability. I don't know if that's a "psychic" ability or not, but I do believe it is ESP... extra-sensory-perception. I have the ability to feel what another person is feeling. The intensity of that depends on the person, whether or not I'm tapped into them and how strong their emotion is.

So, heightened emotional "hearing".

In the city, there are so many people that it's like being in the crowd at a Metallica concert. It's emotionally very loud, very discordant, very jumbled and cacophonous.

For the person with heightened hearing, they can use ear plugs. Likewise, I can turn off the empathy.

However, when I turn it off, my own emotions shut down. I haven't found the switch, so to speak, which just turns off the "outside light", leaving the "inside lights" still on.

Now, what Charles was arguing was that I could learn to hone and fine-tune that empathy. He didn't use those words, of course, but that is what he was arguing. YES, I could fine tune it. I could train myself to shut off the exterior.

And here we come to the final point... I don't want to. I LIKE feeling people. I LIKE feeling what they do and how they behave. There are some people that I shut off with. For instance, most of the time I turn off the empathy when dealing with my sister because it's the same thing every time and it's such a powerful blast of emotion (confusion, want, need, betrayal and loss) that I just don't need that.

I don't WANT to live in the city. I don't like the fast pace. I don't like the big crowds of people, specifically because in order to shut them out emotionally, I start shutting down emotionally.

I don't want to learn how to stay open internally and shut down externally because ......

*frowns as she thinks this through*

Wait... I CAN shut down externally while staying open internally, and vice versa. I can feel other people's emotions washing over me without internalizting them... without feeling them as if they were my own. I can internalize them too, just for information.

But I can shut off the empathy on an external level while remaining open and soft internally. So, what is it that I don't like? There must be something more to this whole city/crowd thing.

Well damn. I thought I had me figured out in this issue. *rolls her eyes* I have to think about this a little more. But I don't want to...

Perhaps that's the simple answer.

Perhaps I don't like cities and the rush of activity within them simply because... I don't want to.