The irony in my insufferability

I should be doing something more productive, but writing's quite therapeutic and fun.

So I've been commuting to work for a week now—5 days really—and so far it has been bearable. I've been exploring audiobooks and podcasts to listen to, in hopes of not letting my hour-long commute be an entire waste of time. I've stumbled upon a treasure trove of audiobooks on my already-paid-for Spotify, so for the past few days I've been listening to Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, a book that I've read quite some time ago. Although this is my first ever audiobook,  I have to say I quite enjoy prof. Adrian Praetzellis' narration.

It sounds a little self-righteous to say I resonate with feelings that Siddhartha has felt in the book, but I'm merely writing this here and not declaring it to the world so it's fine. I'm not about to go on a journey to seek Enlightenment, at least not just yet.

I've also listened to an episode of Marc Maron's podcast where Louis CK talked about Horace and Pete which I quite "enjoyed" watching. "Enjoyed" because it was depressing yet thought-provoking, which I find value in, but wouldn't exactly call it entertaining.

Now back to the title of this post. I wouldn't go about telling other people that I've been listening to Siddhartha and watching stuff like Horace and Pete, because it sounds like some holier-than-thou hipster trying to appear individualistic and consider themselves to be a unique snowflake. There's always this internal conflict of wanting to be different but yet constantly reminding myself that no matter how different I am, there are at least thousands of people that are similarly "different", statistically speaking. One-in-a-million isn't all that unique if we're talking about a population of a billion. That thing you enjoy reading or watching or listening exists because a lot of like-minded people enjoy it, not because only you enjoy it.

The irony of the whole thing is that while I'm trying to be different, I'm doing it as part of thousands of people commuting to work, and in that sense I'm really not much different from the others. The guy playing Clash of Clans isn't any less unique than you are; the uncle reading and forwarding messages on WhatsApp isn't any less unique than you are.

I find it dangerous that personality tests label you such and such, and give you delusions of grandeur by making it sound all special. Being labelled INTJ doesn't mean anything, really. It all doesn't really mean anything.

Well, tomorrow's Monday again, week 2 of a job that I would one day write about in detail. I already have new podcasts downloaded and ready to go!