What You Need To Know About People Who Find Solace in Reading and Writing

                Thought Catalog has been my sanctuary for the past couple of months. I have spent countless hours browsing through its pages, reading articles and compositions written by complete strangers who for some reason, I find a connection with. It's a wonderful feeling to have someone who lives half-way across the globe empathize with you; to know that there's someone out there who has felt the way you've felt and can fully understand where you're coming from gives a sense of relief. 

But the best part of it is you don't even have to say anything after that. Sure, you can sob and do some wall-wailing after that heart-clenching read, but no one is obliging you to pat that person on the back and offer words of wisdom.

You get to be that person's person even if you don't know each other.

You allow him/her to just write out his/her thoughts while s/he allows you to dwell on his/her words.

This is actually a gift that not everyone appreciates because they fail to understand the beauty silence can make between two people. Not everyone understands that sometimes, not exchanging words at all and just being there weighs more than any inspirational words quoted from the most brilliant philosophers of the world.

It's quite hard really, to tell another person about the sentiments you have about everything and anything in your life. It's hard to speak your mind especially when you have critics lurking around you 24/7,

waiting to murder any seedling of thought that springs out from your mouth. It doesn't matter what type of relationship you have with your shrink, your siblings, or even your best friend. You can never truly open yourself up to anyone because you fear rejection and judgment.

Not everyone can practice the act of listening. Most people think that whenever you go to them to talk, they have the obligation to offer advice and to console you. But the truth is, you just want someone to hear you out. You just want someone to act as a vessel for your overflowing emotions because you can't keep it anymore.

But most people are natural talkers. They just love talking and acting like geniuses who have the solution to all your problems (if there are even problems to begin with). They act like they're all rational and logical, and they just make you feel like one big blob of uncontrolled emotions. 

This is why you feel threatened whenever another person offers to have a talk with you. Your inner voice screams at you to just pass on the opportunity to speak-out because you know nothing good will ever come out of it.

So you just stay silent.

You pretend like you're totally fine just to get everyone off your back.

You choose to keep it all in yourself even if you already feel like exploding on the inside.

It's normal.

I completely get you.

I think that it is natural for a person to choose to stay mum than to try and cultivate any idea of his through interaction with his fellow human beings. I, for one, just choose to read my curiosity away instead of asking other people. It's not because I'm anti-social or introverted (okay, somehow I am but only a tiny bit), or even proud, but because I'm afraid of being branded as 'stupid', 'uncultured', or 'naive'. I know it sounds really unfair and quite defensive of me to think that way, but I'm speaking through experiences I've had the last 18 years. 

People just like pouncing on the opportunity to degraded someone just to make themselves feel better in their own skin. They try to compensate for their short-comings by trampling on others' feelings.

Don't get me wrong. This is not some kind of anti-thesis about the saying "no man is an island", or the concept of mutualism and teamwork and sharing ideas or what have you. I am just trying to give an explanation why there are people like me who find solace in reading and writing, and why people shouldn't fault us for being this way.

We are not nerds, noobs, retards, depressed, lonely or conceited assholes. We're just people who are sick and tired of constantly feeling useless and irrelevant.

 So if you really want us to drop our books, stop writing in our journals and just talk, then you should start to learn how to listen.