does anyone else watch and wonder?

[k]

do you ever just look at people, watch their expressions, catch bits of their conversations?  do you ever look at them and it seems like they 'get life.'  it looks like they have places to go things to do and it looks like they have purpose and what they do seems to matter to them?  and, you sit and wonder to yourself why? what is it they see or feel or think that makes them go about their lives like it matters and means something to them.  and you think and wonder to yourself how you missed it?  you look at them and wonder how you can be so different so different that life and everyday behavior is so overwhelming. you think how could it be that the best i can do is get out of bed and try to stay out a few hours. how you've accomplished something when you've managed to do a small chore, make a phone call, how you mustered up the energy and will power to brush your teeth.
i always feel different and never feel like i can understand regular people and regular behavior but when i'm depressed this low i see other people like this and i wonder how it can be so damn hard to do what so many people do just naturally without even thinking about it. 

[Phyllis]

I'm a people watcher. I watch people where ever I go, doesn't matter where I am at. I wonder what their lives are like, what they do, how are their families, what are they talking about, who do they know... But then I remember, everyone has at least one demon.

[KATE336]

I really wonder how these people seem to keep what they get. I have had glimpses of these things but always lose them to bizarre manic episodes. Friends, jobs, "normal" lived life...How these people develop friendships, families, have careers, pay bills, socialize...It enamors me. I don't know if I feel bitter or what. I have to tell myself these things are obtainable again. Or else what? I do not want to be nothing. And that seems like what I always get left with.

[Ramji]

I think they do have things to live for .... but, without trying to sound cruel, it always seems they lack depth.  And yet I often envy them for seeming to float through life seeming to grasp it's meaning (at least on the surface). 

I had a treatment today and I'm having trouble functioning, but then I do most of the time.

do you ever just look at people, watch their expressions, catch bits of their conversations?  do you ever look at them and it seems like they 'get life.'  it looks like they have places to go things to do and it looks like they have purpose and what they do seems to matter to them?  and, you sit and wonder to yourself why? what is it they see or feel or think that makes them go about their lives like it matters and means something to them.  and you think and wonder to yourself how you missed it?  you look at them and wonder how you can be so different so different that life and everyday behavior is so overwhelming. you think how could it be that the best i can do is get out of bed and try to stay out a few hours. how you've accomplished something when you've managed to do a small chore, make a phone call, how you mustered up the energy and will power to brush your teeth.
i always feel different and never feel like i can understand regular people and regular behavior but when i'm depressed this low i see other people like this and i wonder how it can be so damn hard to do what so many people do just naturally without even thinking about it. 

[nordicnicki]

i people watch and know that what i see isnt real......for many years people thought me and my ex were the perfect couplpe.....sooooooo wrong...hehe

[Skylona]

I watch people sometimes. Like driving by windows I wonder about those peoples lives. I wonder about people's lives in differen't countries with different ways and differen't languages. I sometimes feel like where so apart from each other, with our circle; you know a family circle, then our store, school, hospital circle, then our world circle. That it amazes me that so many people with so many lives all surrounding each other, so many lives so many circles, is one world, yet never seem the same in only that they are not your circle. How could so many circles exist in one world since they never seem to touch your circle?


I guess I feel like a person in a strange land. Like I am an alien from another planet when I look at these circles of lives.

I like to think about the sixth degrees of separation though so I can keep grounded in reality. So I know that we all have a struggle just cause we look perfect on the outside doesn't mean we are. That sounds so trite. I feel alot more like a person from a differen't land in a country I do not understand more than I would like to admit.

What is that called when a person goes to study another group of people and goes insane oh yes "Culture Shock".....

This is what I feel simply as we can never ever really know everything about everyone or every thing so we will always wonder and think...is this so much more or so much less than us. Shouldn't we just think this is this? For it is only our circle that has labeled us?

I guess that is why we can never really understand someone elses life until we've walked a mile in there shoes. I think we are the lucky to be unlucky ones cause we  can see that below the labels we see what else they could be. I like to make up story's about the people I see in my mind from trips....

Just for fun

[francie]

it was really interesting to read your post, k, and then to read the responses.

i often look at people and wish i could live like them -- independently, have my own car, a job, maybe someone to share my life with and have a real, honest-to-god, permanent "home", somewhere i can keep things the way i like, and to feel good about.. it's been so many years.  I know lots of people have this, and i do envy them quite a lot.   I used to have all of these things, but life has changed.

i also think "good for you" when i see these people, because i know at least some people out there have some security and a place which makes them feel safe and warm.

it's not that i'm materialistic, i'm not.  just want my secure place in the world back!

[Brian]

I don't know that I watch people much, but I try to be fairly observant of stuff going on around me. I go walking every evening after dinner and I usually notice which cars are where, which cars have been gone for a while, which people seem to be outside in the evenings and which people seem to spend most of their time in front of their TV (with their blind open). I try not to be too nosey, though.

[clayton]

All these people are suffering, regardless of how happy they may look; there is a saying that only two kinds of people are not suffering: the idiot, and the enlightened sage. So you can take it they are not really happy.

[jjinlimbo]

I think each to his own, my wife lives to watch t.v. she loves it, that doesn't make her unhappy. Me i dont watch t.v. it doesn't make me happy, I'd rather write or play with the dogs. I do see that there are many people out there that are unhappy and do things that don't make them happy. I too am a people watcher. I can read just about anybodies mood just by the way they hold themselves. There are many unhappy people in this world, me included from time to time. I think they should be left alone. Each to his own I say!!!!