> play normal for a while so you can bath in normal interactions We all have common ground with others, all it takes is figuring out that common ground and res

> play normal for a while so you can bath in normal interactions We all have common ground with others, all it takes is figuring out that common ground and restricting oneself to it, despite what else you have to offer and how much it means to you, for the sake of what you can share with that other person. People do it all the time, usually even in friendships and relationships, and average people aren't ultimately less alone just because they're surrounded by other average people. I'd say not being alone is being in touch with yourself and with others; and if the average person has that, they hide it mighty well. I'd rather say "normal" people are simply alone and isolated in groups and in sanctioned ways, instead of as individuals. And even "normal" people have to "play normal" all the time. > The Guinness book of records is full of isolated, lonely, deeply depressed misanthropes. This may be true, I have no idea, but I don't think that all gifted people have to end up isolated and depressed. Do you think the average person is happy just for being average? Nah, everybody hurts. Yes, people love to discriminate against others who are different, and being smart can be depressing, just for seeing through a lot of the crap so much time and energy and lives are wasted on -- but it takes two to make it a full-blown gap, half of that equation is always in your hands. Here's two quotes I like, I think they go well together: "I have expressed my strong interest in the mass of the people; and this is founded, not on their usefulness to the community, so much as on what they are in themselves. Indeed every man, in every condition, is great. It is only our own diseased sight which makes him little. A man is great as a man, be he where or what he may. The grandeur of his nature turns to insignificance all outward distinctions." -- William Ellery Channing "Is it only when the flowers are in full bloom and when the moon is shining in spotless perfection that we ought to gaze at them?" -- Kenko Yoshida