Does Anyone Else Have a “Strange” Interest?

[Dr Iron Arc]

I think this forum and my beliefs on suicide are probably the most shunned interests I have. Outside of those, I guess you could consider all my media interests as being too childish for my age but I can't help those.

 

[Leichter Kampfwagen]

Not having mental boundaries. I can't really have an honest discussion about anything with anyone as oftentimes I wander into areas that seem to be off limits for others.

It seems like I mostly operate in theoreticals in which I (try) and view things from outside of myself, where I indiscriminately challenge every assumption that I hold and ruthlessly question everything I think I know is true. It's pretty exhausting and honestly really demoralizing, but that's besides the point. With pretty much everyone I have ever had a discussion with, however, it seems like I have to probe them relentlessly just to get them to enter the hypothetical plane, if I can get them to enter it at all, and have to try even harder to keep them there with me, as they seem to get uncomfortable and try to leave said plane after just a few steps in the thought experiment. Even if I manage to get them and keep them there, it seems like I eventually drill down to an impermeable "bedrock" foundation of biases that they cannot or are unwilling to discard. Certain biases that fundamentally make us human. Where things start to get exciting for me is where they start to get uncomfortable for others.

I have one good friend who I am able to talk to about a lot of things, but even with him there is a boundary, although it appears to encompass a much larger area which overlaps with a lot more of what I say than others'.

It seems like ultimately I scare people and the fact that nearly all of my discussions serve more as entertainment than anything else doesn't seem to help. Thus, I tend to censor myself a lot more than others do, which is tiring.

I know this post makes me sound insufferable, and maybe I am. However, I think I censor myself pretty well. I have some pretty good friendships after all. But sometimes I do slip up. In fact, most of my friends know I'm like this and characterize me as someone on the extreme (in good faith, often jokingly) based on the things that I accidentally let slip. They think I have no filter but don't know that I have a pretty good one and am actually much, much "worse."

I'm grateful they put up with me.

 

[Shrike]

I think people are more comfortable with deeper thinking if it ends up in a book they might choose to read. Otherwise it's too distressing. Bias analysis and removal takes a lot of work and people would rather do other things. I've mostly learned where peoples' "you're thinking about it too hard" or "you're taking it too seriously" appears. And causing distress is not good.

My strange interest would be UFOs and the like. It's pretty hard to mention that and not get branded as a conspiracy theorist, heh. I'm a sucker for first contact fiction.