Until recently, my vision of the world was: Me versus everyone else. On the one hand, there was me, with all my strengths, weaknesses, and problems. And on the other hand, were all the others. I saw the others as a kind of large "mafia", with its codes, which sees Yossi Patt as a different and strange person. This was until I realized something that should have seemed clear and obvious to me: I was like anyone else.
I realized that just as I see all the people on the bus, they also see me: an ordinary passenger. I am no different from the one who stood before and the one who stands after for the cashier at the grocery store. I am Yossi, as there are David, Shlomo, Rina, and Shulamit. Ask me what is important, and what differences do these two different views of the world make? Ooh, an abysmal difference!
In my previous view, I tended to consider the others with utter contempt or vice versa - with excessive admiration. (This is only an apparent contradiction: both approaches stem from the same view of them versus me). I was not sensitive to them because I did not understand that they are human beings just like me. I would not treat their pettiness and minor defects with forgiveness and humor. On the other hand, I would get upset and behave funnily or annoyingly, without understanding what I was doing to them.
I thought I was expected to say something strange. I would try to emulate what I thought was a normative person, and precisely because of this, I would behave strangely. The result was the other people would treat me just as I saw myself: a different person from the rest.
Now, on the other hand, I make friends for myself as easily as I would make enemies for myself. And I have noticed that people do accept my uniqueness (and each of us has one). I expand on this in the post: "About the improvement, I felt in behavior in society."
Tell me, perhaps, that the discovery I made is banal. Maybe, but to me, it took 63 years to figure it out.