out·sid·er
ˌoutˈsīdər/
noun
1.
a person who does not belong to a particular group.
Being on the outside for a while is good for anyone. An observer with valuable insight is the direct product of ostracization, alienation, criticism, and the such-like. Take my older brother, for example. When he was a kid, he was sheltered and extremely intelligent. He would occasionally hang out with the neighborhood boys, running up and down the street with them. It wasn't until those boys started discovering cool in the 7th grade that my brother came home with a bloody nose and we found out what had been going on with him: he was being bullied. He never talks about it, and why would he? He never really did. I don’t pretend to know why, but I do know what I saw it work in him: a brief emo stage and an emergence of careful intellect and insight. He is intuitive of people’s natures. He has not only witnessed, but experienced many angles of humankind, and he’s come out of it with an understanding of the way that we work. His utmost pleasure has always been to make people tick, and that would continue to lead him into compromising situations, but I think that he’s learned to be quieter in a sense. He’s still crazy, but he observes, he understands. Perhaps some would call this growing up, but I think it’s a partial result of having seen several sides of the world. I think that to an extent, being an outsider for a while is good for people.
Think about it: if you are liked constantly, then you will not find the time or necessity to sit back and look at the way people act and why. Being on the outside produces unique perspectives. The resulting determination to understand why you are disliked or unequal to your peer group produces a introspective nature to be prized.
I myself was never insatiably disliked, I have never been shown any great ill-will or malice. In reality, I was always given the chance to be liked. However, I had a weird pride complex and a huge fear of being disliked, so I walled myself up and did all of the ostracizing on my own. I was an observer by nature, and socially anxious. I found it necessary to understand why people were the way they were, so that I could navigate through life. Having been home schooled and shy, my peers scared me and teenagers frightened me to my core. I was a pretentious child and believed that I ought to be on the top tier, but I had to figure out how. So, I watched and listened, and tried not to be embarrassed in the process.
Although now I understand that being contemptuous of other human beings because you feel threatened by them is a terrible way to live, at some points I learned valuable lessons simply by watching, and by empathizing with any underdog in any situation I was placed in, because I felt like we were on the same level. I think I was probably more of a background character in reality, but I developed a nature of observation and an intuition that is crucial to understanding and empathizing. This sort of understanding tenderness, the ability to say “I've been there,” is a really lovely result of being an outsider.
Thanks for reading!
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