EPIC: The I of the Beholder

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve felt alien in every space I entered. I never figured out how to fit into a group or a vibe. I was always just scenery - a tree or a rock with eyes. My only function was to watch and imagine what it felt like to be inside the hive mind: sandbox friends, school dances, university mixers, corporate team-building events... I was the life-size cardboard cutout, shoved into the corner.
I wanted to want it. The fun, the buzz, the shared nonsense. But I was bored out of my mind because the whole social ballet felt completely fake.
The only thing that was real was watching them. I see things they don’t. I catch the underlying patterns, the rules, the implicit systems they’re acting out without even knowing it. Watching, dissecting, and sometimes rewriting boring reality into an interesting story - that’s all I have.
I’d love to have that magic - to walk into a room and melt, like sugar in hot tea. But I can’t. I don’t belong. I can’t be part of a larger whole, and I can’t share experience or emotion with others.
Maybe art is my only attempt at a thread, a single, thin connection to the group - to the audience. But it’s a one-way channel. I can try to put my thoughts out there, but I don’t hear a thing back.
They say humans are social animals, and perhaps one of the most painful experiences is realizing that you are more part of the landscape than part of society.

(Digital drawing, 2026)