Winter cometh.

Hmm. Winter is rolling in fast, and right on cue my seasonal introspection is rolling in. There's something about this time of year; the death of the last world and the beginning of the new, to invoke the ancients, which instills within me a certain feeling. In some ways, I feel less alone this time of year- the world is cold and dying, in Britain at least, but we're together. Summer... it's all too true that the loneliest place in the world is in the middle of crowds. At this time of year, it's easier to remember everyone's a person.

I like to revel in insignificance, to gaze up at the skies and to look at things like the APOD... how could anyone ever think we matter in any way. We're fleshly shells of carbon compounds eking out existence on a cold rock dangerously flung round a nuclear furnace, one of many millions of rocks out there in the cold dark universe. And that's /beautiful/.

As of late I'm finding it easier to relate to people, not just to talk to them but to have conversations with them. In some ways, it's sad that the one thing I cannot do- healthily interact with people- is the one thing I want to do the most, but maybe it's not so weird. Things like maths, sciences, the acedemiac things that makes up most of my existence... I've always done them. And they're great. But I could never truly belive in them totally for their own sakes, because I am human and we are a social ape. The trouble is, the worst part of life is the impermeable barrier between /you/ and /the rest/. You can never join minds as one, you are stuck behind your own plastic interpretation of the world, a PVC prison, clear as day but as tactile as a sheet of lead. It's horrible to think that I will never get someone else to see the world as I see it; I can try my utmost, but to know me is not to be me. And so I feel alone. And so we, as a species, feel alone. We try out utmost not to be... but I fear we are.

I wonder, sometimes, about people, and how we classify the relationships between us. I was privy to a frankly ridiculous conversation about the distinctions between "friends with benefits", "going out", "seeing each other", "dating" et al on Friday. I, quite literally, facepalmed. This obsession with nomenclature is a predominant attitude amoung, well, everything humanity does. But it's especially obvious in how we define our interactions with each other. Look, for instance, at the gay marriage row over in California. I've talked with people, sane people, who are absoloutely fine with gay marriage rights, as long as it's noit called "marriage". They've said, clear as day, that if the difference is in name only then that's fine, but if they are identical in everything this is wrong. Shakespeare, where are you now; tell us again of roses and of their natures.

Should people be discouraged from this endless naming? No, it gives them something to do, I suppose. But it seems bizarre... in any sane world, there would be clear cut definitions of everything and that would be fine. Haha! I've just realized- I'm falling into the same trap. For why are definitions necessary at all; why can they not just fall by the way said? Surely it is the doing, not the being, which is more important? Why does everything need metadata? I echo here a sentiment of Terry Pratchetts, that 9/10 of the universe is undetectable because it is doing the paperwork for the other 1/10. We ascribe so much to everything, we create this panoply of things and meanings around it all, we create stories for the world, stories like "fairness" and "equality" and "rights" and "love" and "freedom" and we call it being human. And it is wonderful. This, then, is the point to all the nomenclature: it's just another search for meaning, by creating it out of whole cloth.

I think the problem is, once you've seen this, once you realise what you're doing at look directly at the metadata of the universe, it all seems like so much spidersilk. I always feel like an outsider, because that's what I am, a misfit. The trip outside is one-way, the brightness outside the cave overwhelming yet freeing, and yet sometimes I wish I could re-chain my mind. To not think like this, to not over-analyze my analysis of anything, recursion after recursion after recursion... it would be good. To be able to love and lose and not care, and not notice, and just be... yeah. I'd like that. But then, I fear, I wouldn't be me. I'd be someone totally different in every way. And nobody wants that... well, probably not.

TL;DR version of this post: wintertime gives me extreme introspection and I am silly about it.

If you managed to get all through all that and didn't hang yourself or go off to do something rather more /fun/, well done. Leave a comment or something; it'd be nice to know the plastic barriers aren't that thick.