You’re Not That Special (and Neither is She)

One of the things you don't start picking up on until you've spent much time out of the West, then rotated back into it, then out of it, then into it again, is the "epidemic of specialness" the West has going on.

When you visit Asia, some parts of South America, and some parts of central or Eastern Europe, for instance, most of the people you meet will describe themselves as "just an average [nationality] girl/guy."

Part of this is humility - everybody believes he's special to some degree - but part of it is just down-to-Earth honest-to-goodness realistic-ness. The guy knows he's just another human being, and merely one of very many.

But travel back to the West, and you're quickly smacked in the face with the order of the day here: that is, everyone is special.

Not just special, but unique. And, deserving of your utmost adoration, and respect.

Only, because we're not all that special or unique, a great many people in the West are living in a constant state of vast cognitive dissonance, ready to explode at a moment's notice as soon as anyone suggests they are not as special as they'd like you to think they are.

They're living a lie - an illusion - and the only way that illusion is maintained is if they can make everybody else around them subscribe to it, too.

And if anybody around them doesn't... well, look out.

I'll explain.