Two Kinds of People in this World

A new way of thinking about sensitivity

I never saw a homeless person growing up. Many Americans live in rural places where unsheltered people exist but are not terribly visible. Plus, I am from the South where a hard-to-describe shame factor demands families with a black sheep must either help that sheep or completely ignore him/her. All I am saying is that the South makes living openly without a home a more complicated issue.

I think people in the world can be separated into two enormous categories: the sensitive and the insensitive. Certainly, I am in the first group and identify as a HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). Yet, I have never become comfortable with seeing people on street corners with signs or walking near the homeless in downtown areas. This is despite my own struggles, my life in mental health, and knowing many people forced to survive on the street.

All of that leads me to think that my simple dichotomy relegating all into opposing sides of humanity is harder than easy, because my sensitivity has limits. So does yours, I imagine.

I am not proud of that, but I do want to help and have done so. I am led to think that one’s reaction to seeing suffering, in the form of other humans who are thrust into awful living conditions, is a measure of one’s sensitivity or insensitivity.

Please let me explain. It will not take very long.

The sensitive folks might be taken aback or even disquieted by the homeless, but think to themselves: “This is terrible, and these people deserve a helping hand.” It is not uncommon, though, to feel powerless as to a solution.

The insensitive look upon the same dire circumstances and say inside their heads: “I bet they regret making certain choices and wish they could go back and follow sound advice.”

Both reactions are valid in some way. The more calloused kind of folks may or may not be accurate, but they emphasize the wrong things every time. That is the difference between my two broad, over-simplified groupings.

Insensitives have not let go of the competitive compulsion that begins in early childhood. In plainer speak, they see almost everything as a contest with winners and losers. Homeless people offer proof that the respectable, middle-class, homeowning, full-time jobbers have won.

Furthermore, every day that the unroofed, or those in poverty, or prisoners (and more), exist, more evidence is added to the pile. I think I will call the Insensitives Group B just to make it simpler. So despite what they profess, the B’s need the suffering to continue suffering in order to claim a place of superiority. Those are probably subconscious thoughts.

In addition, the have-nots appear to many as deserving of their fate. As competitors, Group B people turn to poor decisions (including drugs) and stubbornness as reasons why some are losing the game. There are rules, after all, and we must adhere to them in order to remain free from some unfortunate existence.

This is fairness, according to the B mentality. There are no inconsistencies here, and I am not even blaming the B people for adopting the widespread permutations of Social Darwinism. There is logic that can be supported with a quick review of life and its brutality.

The B’s are often guilty of the “zero sum game” mentality that assumes when some prosper others are automatically pushed down the imaginary life rankings. This is immature, short-sighted, reactionary, wrong, and a very human thing. The Insensitives are simply acting like people, so I have no intention of making them out to be dastardly villains plotting the world’s demise.

However, there is a better way, and dear reader, you are correct to think that I believe my answers are the right ones. Everyone thinks that, especially the B group.

For one, Sensitives grasp complexity and are somewhat comfortable with lacking definitive “truths” to hard questions. We realize that life is not like a sporting event and thinking of it this way diminishes and obscures our humanity. There are no scoreboards.

Have you ever played some card game? Yes, I am sure you have, therefore you gather that any contest with cards cannot have so many rules as to make it unintelligible. What to do and not do has to make sense even to the least of the players sitting around the table. Simplicity rules the day.

With cards, someone always keeps score unless the game is not that serious, and all these behaviors and attitudes can be and are applied to life. The B’s must walk in confidence that they are part of the team triumphant like those standing on an Olympic podium, but the A’s care far less if at all.

Sensitives eventually learn that the most lucrative rewards derive from self-satisfaction and helping our fellowman. It took me forever for this lesson to sink in, but it finally did.

Group A members are more curious and introspective but less certain of “knowing” something. Guys and ladies of the B persuasion thus appear more confident. All the time, someone nearby will utter the words: “Wow, he must be a natural born leader.” Sensitives are promoted less and are talked over more, but we are more right and less wrong than the Insensitives.

Surprisingly, we like talking about ourselves more than those other guys, but these are the kind of conversations that are deeper than the norm. Basically, the A’s want to define where we belong, love taking personality tests, and enjoy speaking to others about our differences compared to the B’s.

That is not a putdown at all and makes perfect sense in my HSP brain. We have a good reason to be self-interested, and it is because so few people in our lives cared for or paid attention to us. Sensitives are not important. Their skills are rarely what is needed (in terms of perception) in most day-to-day or especially emergency situations.

As I hinted at a few minutes ago, the Insensitives have no problem maneuvering to the front of the line and enjoy boiling down multilayered problems into easy-to-digest soundbites. People love that stuff. The B person lays everything out neatly, while the A representative must say things like “Well let’s wait and see, this is not a cut and dry issue.” Which of the two would the average dude choose most of the time?

We talk about ourselves and our desires, dreams, and reflections, because no one else will. Think about it, how many people have slogged through your outer defenses to actually know something that you want? Not the obvious now, as I refer to the soul-level passion you have for what is meaningful.

The super-Sensitive man or woman never expects to be appreciated or noticed. We have to make compromises with our inner selves in order to persist trying to live and make a difference. Sensitives are constantly interrupted, and on and on I could go.

I have considered that if HSP exist then perhaps HISP (Highly Insensitive People) are out there, and maybe they account for most of the boneheaded things that occur. Really, as far as those who are not blessed with common sense—what do they have in common? What about Joe-Screwup at the office or that cousin whose blunderings reveal a long record of ineptness? Maybe, just maybe, the defining feature here is insensitivity.

People who are wrong all the time cannot read any room. They are insensitive to the subtleties that usually make the difference between helpful and unhelpful. Bullies are both unthinking and insensitive. I would never characterize a problem-solver at any level as insensitive.

If what I say is true, I will not put the HISP with the B’s. There must be some separate distinction and dishonor for the super-duper-Insensitives.

Being insensitive is much like having low emotional intelligence. But my category is still larger and accounts for more than lacking EQ.

There is an undeclared war between the A’s and B’s that will never cease. By the way, which group, based on everything I have written here, has it easier in this ol’ world? Yep, our lives are harder but more fulfilling, methinks.

At least, fulfillment is possible, but so is the kind of incurable Depression that medication can hardly affect.

I would never consent to being less sensitive, regardless of all the tribulations that might come my way. I think you feel the same dear reader, right? One knows little to nothing about this world, and certainly can never attain wisdom, unless his mind, soul, and ears are tuned to hear what is really happening beyond heavily curated, so-called reality.

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