The MTA is my YMCA

Maybe I’ve read to many comic books. Or I’ve delved too deeply into too many characters in sci-fi epics. It’s easy to blame the media. Our whipping post when we’ve run out of resources to blame for all our own faults. Insert bitter laugh here. Is there an emoticon to lend exageration to my point? Ahh, now I’ve gone tangential, strayed from my point. another rant for another day. I came here to say this:

I’m caught between deciding if I’m gifted or cursed. I say this with no intended arrogance or weighted emotion to tip the scale, but I’ve grown past the logical point for someone my age. I feel older than I am, in several respects. Not older as in particularly matured, but at least, the perspective that should rightfully come with years I haven’t gotten. To pluck one thought from this ambiguous mist here and simplify it, I can read you.

I say “you” as opposed to “people” because all people are you. There are only few exceptions to the rule, and I can read those reasons to those exceptions anyway. I hate it, though. I’m really very serious. I can break down your mental defenses, cut to the core of you, show you what you are hiding. I’m not saying this is always easy; sometimes it takes days, weeks. sometimes, seconds. I’m an abhorrent mutilation of the psyche.

But I use it. And I grow ever closer to loving this ability, reveling in it. Which is what often scares me. I know things about people that can be so damaging, so hurtful, that no one should be able to wield it. Thank God I don’t believe in religion.

I get on a bus for my mental workouts. On a bus, I can freely violate peoples’ minds at will because I will likely not see them again, and I have time alone in proximity. It’s like a burning drive - who are you today, sir? With your USA Today and sensible coat, but deeply saddened, confused look in your eye? What are you hiding? And I’ll tell you, and your fluster and panicked eyes betray the denial of my claims you declare after your initial shock. And in that moment, I have you, I feel everything you feel, I am you.