It's not the individual talents, dear. It's the whole package. I could hardly compete with Alice Waters as a chef or Alice Walker as a writer, but I still think I'm better than most and putting both those skills together makes me uniquely me.

*ahem* Or are you going to tell me that I'm not special?

Sure you're special. But tell me you don't know how I feel? You've talked about that... syndrome, I forget the name... and that one particular area of specialization *you* use...

Asperger's Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. But I'm honestly not sure what it or using sex to pass for socialization has to do with wanting to feel special. I was always fully aware whenever I forced things to a crude bent that I was not behaving in a normal fashion, and it was certainly only special in terms of its sheer clumsiness and failure.

I'm not saying it's a good analogy. Hell, I have this argument in my head that I can't properly phrase. I guess I'm trying to rely on the notion that you use it as a means to distinguish yourself in conversation. And the parallel is that I don't have any means to distinguish myself. Does that make any sense? I honestly can't tell.

See, that's just it. I wasn't really trying to distinguish myself. I was just trying to have what I perceived was a normal conversation, in the only way I thought I could.

Enh, bad analogy then. ^.^ Well, I stand by what I say about feeling mundane and unimportant anyway!

I'm not as good a writer as any number of writers I could name.

I was never the best programmer in college, nor am I in my current place of work.

I'll never be half the artist that cyfis is.

There are faster readers than me - Quatoes is one.

Storytellers have impressed me with their attention to detail and the sheer fun of the games they have run - I've never been able to engage someone that completely.

My mother's a much better cook than I am.

Boy, are there people who are more fanatical about anime than I am. ^^ They frighten me.

There are people who speak much better Japanese than I do. They're called "Japanese," and they grew up speaking it. ^^ However, there are also foreigners who can speak almost as well, and I can't.

There will always be people who act cooler, dress better, handle things easier, and generally make me look second rate, if I want to take it that way. And though I don't want to, sometimes I do take it that way. Then I smack myself, because it doesn't matter. I'm better at something than everyone who is better at something else. And no one is the best, because when you get to the top, you start getting into luck. Discern world-class physicist A from world-class physicist B? Well, A might have invented theory 1, and B theory 2, but which is more significant? It's hard to tell. Even if it's clear cut that theory 1 is better, how do you know that A just didn't have better information than B? It could have nothing to do with their skill. And they probably suck at something I can do, because they're world class physicists, and I'm not. I've got to have been wasting my time on something. ^^

Wow, that was a long, roundabout post.

In conclusion - because I forgot to append one - everyone is special. God, I've met people who seemed not to have two brain cells to knock together in their head, but that doesn't mean they aren't better than me at something.

We aren't special because we're the best. We're special because we're us, and we're not someone else, and that means we have a point of view to offer which no one else can. Every single one of those points of view is something special to offer.

Of course, there's something special in knowing when to shut up, too, and I think I've reached that point. ^^ Hope I made mine.

Then perhaps my problem is that I get the feeling that my point of view just isn't important to most people?

I'm sure you understand how I feel, if not the extent to which I feel it sometimes. I know I'm unique... the problem is that when it seems no one appreciate it, I tend to get pissed off and hurt...

Erm, you have the unique talent of making the rest of us thwap you upside the head? :P

But seriously, we respect you fine for who you are.

Oh, I know you do, and I hadn't intended this post as some sort of cry for affirmation -- rather, an explanation of why I sometimes get the way I do, even over things that may seem unimportant or trivial to other people.

Fact: That which one desires most only manifests itself into being when one stops looking for it.