Little Johny

Little Johny always knew he was a bit different from the other kids. As he grew older he developed a deep hatred for society. He never was one to follow the crowd and he found it hard to care about other people besides those people close to him. In the event of a large scale natural disaster or a terrorist attack he would shrug it off and get on with his day. In fact he probably cared more about natural disasters than terrorist attacks because they kill more people, and he also knew that his government was partly responsible for the creation of so many terrorists in the first place.

Of course that type of thinking never makes it easy to find friends, and Johny always did find it hard to fit in with "normal people". His small group of friends were all outcasts in their own way, but he loved them for that. As he grew older he discovered the "world wide web" and began interacting with people from all around the world. Being the type of person who doesn't fit in with the mainstream crowd, he soon became familiar with fringe websites which would talk about controversial ideas and present information which wasn't afraid to upset the status quo.

Over time Johny realized that he had more in common with "crazy" conspiracy theorists from other nations then he did with his own countrymen. He always found it difficult to have a sense of national pride because he absolutely despised the evil actions of his own government and he intensely hated seeing the world constantly being at war. However he also knew there wasn't much he could do to change the way the world worked, and if he wanted to exist in the world he would have to obey the laws and ideologies placed on him by society at large. This is what made him despise society.

After a while Johny discovered that even in the dark corners of the fringe web it's not easy to fit in. Although he feels a bit more at home, he is still an outcast in a community of outcasts. His list of foes greatly outweighs his small list of friends. Many of the people he has discussions with are highly religious but in the eyes of Johny organized religion is the ultimate manifestation of the herd mentality and unquestioning dedication to false authority, it's the most primal example of giving in to emotions rather than using facts and logic to reach a sensible conclusion.

On a few occasions Johny questions whether he might be a psychopath or a sociopath, maybe that could explain why he found it difficult to care about other people. However he knew neither of those things could be true because war deeply upset him and he cared a lot for the health of the planet. He would even catch spiders in his house and release them instead of killing them. Psychopaths and sociopaths both tend to lack empathy, however Johny was remarkably skilled at understanding the feelings of other people, he just didn't care about their feelings if he had no good reason to.

The real reason he was like this is because his brain often valued logical responses more than it valued emotional responses. This type of cold logical thinking was the prime reason he seemed to display a lack of humanity. It wasn't that he was evil or incapable of caring, he just had a way of thinking which made him seem that way some times. It was this way of thinking which led him down the academic path, giving him a strong desire to learn more and increase his ability to think with logic instead of emotions. The thing which he truly craved more than anything was knowledge.

Johny was aware it was strange for a person to value knowledge so much, but he didn't have many other reasons for living. For Johny, the value of life was in the beauty and mystery of life, the amazing complexity with which it functions. The thrill of understanding that complexity and then using it to build new things was like ecstasy for Johny. Nikola Tesla once said “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”

Many brilliant scientists around the world probably seem rather cold and calculating because they share this same sort of love for knowledge, so much so that they place it above other important things in their life. It isn't easy to dedicate your life to becoming an expert in a technical field, it takes a certain type of person, usually the type if person who values time alone more than they value social interaction. It may be generalizing to say that's always the case, but in the case of Johny it was definitely true, he was most certainly an introverted person.

However Johny knew he would not fit in with the mainstream institutions, he would have to teach himself using the vast amount of resources available on the internet. He could see that old ways ways of teaching were becoming obsolete anyway, he believed knowledge should be free and he was going to live his life according to his ideals. No amount of money can buy true understanding, all it really takes is effort and time. Johny spent many years learning and creating, trying his best to change the world for the better according to what he believed... because that's all he really ever wanted.

Johny did care very deeply for society, more than he was ever willing to admit to himself. In fact his main downfall was that he cared too much. He was born into a world with an overwhelming amount of pain and suffering so he had to block it all out and build barriers around himself to shut out the world around him. One day Johny would realize this harsh truth and rather than become upset by it he would see the beauty in it. Even though Nikola Tesla contributed so much to society he died alone as a poor man living in a hotel room with a pigeon as a best friend.

It doesn't matter what Johny does with his life, it doesn't matter what he achieves, because society at large rarely gives credit to those who truly deserve it, instead we worship actors and sports stars. But these things no longer matter to Johny, the world is not going to be exactly the way he wants it to be. Society doesn't owe him anything and Johny knows happy endings are a rare in a godless reality. Children die of starvation every day, quickly forgotten by the world. However if one just focuses on the negative things they will never be able to see the beauty.

We cannot truly appreciate peace without also knowing war and we cannot truly appreciate the value of life without death. One must be able to see beauty in imperfection to see the beauty in our world. We don't live in a perfect world and we shouldn't strive to attain a perfect world because there is no such thing. Every person on Earth has a different idea of what a perfect reality would be like, and one mans heaven can be another mans hell. Johny knows the world will never be exactly the way he wants and he now appreciates that fact, but he'll never stop trying to change it.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

That was a great story! S/F

a reply to: Quantum12

Thank you, it's pretty dark stuff but they're the best type of stories imo. I probably should have put a warning that this story may leave readers with residual mental issues... lmao.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Lol but it's from you and it was great! Dark stories are great to me! Thank you.