Separate

Why do I choose to sit apart? Even among alleged brothers, when taking the same actions, working towards the same goals, still I am not the same. I have no qualms dancing, laughing, talking, partying, going to all the same events, discussing the same topics and entertaining my friends; and yet I am not the same. Among my true friends, those of the past, and very few of the present, I do not feel this way. But among most of those who stand with me day by day, somehow I manage to stand nigh alone. I have been told I'm strange, that I'm an old soul, born in the wrong era; that I'm 'out there'. I haven't been ostracized, so to speak, not by anyone who mattered; but I have, often enough, been cast as different. Even now, as I sit in this chair, with five fellows near, I am not as one. They are not far at all, and yet somehow at a great distance. An outsider among peers. In many ways it bothers me not, this halfway exile of mine; I am given the freedom to be who I wish, am - fairly free of the pressures so many grapple with. But there is a thing of interest, something to notice about the life that I lead - more often than not I find myself studying, surveying, viewing through planes of glass - counted separate, feeling separate, thinking separate - gathering data on the behavior of all the other monkeys, in all the other cages. Why?