Most of us now use this forum as the only outlet.
I am just looking for stories of how people treat you as “thinker”, if you are seen as such. Family and Friends? Strangers?
I’ve been told I’m too deep. I think too much. My response is that most people don’t think enough. But they have the numbers on me. Am I wrong?
They say ignorance is bliss.
Why would you give a rat what other people think? Let them be who they are and be who you are. There is an old saw: “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It annoys the pig and wastes your time.” If they aren’t interested in what you think, leave them the hell alone. Seek out those who do care and get on with it. They aren’t being naughty, they are simply being who they are - just as you are. No fault, no foul.
Hmm… is that like “Don’t cast your pearls before swine” or “Don’t try to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”? 
Pretty much the same, only it needs to be emphasized that there is nothing superior in being a “thinker”, it’s just a different way of looking at the world. It just might be that the non-thinkers have the best possible world. They do, they work, they have their daily bread and it is enough for them. It is the thinkers that screw everything up.
Life is perfect. Let’s fuck with it. 
Thinkers have told me I think too much…
Idiots have told me I don’t think enough…
Joe Average told me once or twice that I’m nothing special…
I felt like a mirror, so I stopped listening… 
If you’re a “thinker” and that’s who you are. Then, when they say you think too much, does that equate to you are too much?
You all care what people think.
It happens to be inconceivable that you can do anything without considering what is going on in other people’s minds. Conversation is built on this, back and forth.
Go ahead. Invent something. A chair. You fashion it under what others think of as comfort or not comfort.
The tough and totally independent mind does not exist, save for the false attitude, and teenage adivce.
As for ignorance being bliss. I have never met anyone in a blistful state. Have you?
When you ask a room full of people about time, when does eternity start and they all say after you die, you suggest that eternity is now . . . but they don’t agree. In fact, they don’t want to talk about time, as a concept. The concept alone is deep. Maybe not for ILP, but you’re average person has nothing to say about time. They are not even curious about it.
I don’t think I’m deep. But I am shrugged off in everyday conversation because of the mere threat of depth.
The reason I care what people think about my thinking is for the common connection with other humans, not to be unique. I am in a minority. Disconnected.
Maybe.
Yes, but it had nothing to do with ignorance. Anyway, I think there is a way that ignorance is bliss. If you don’t know something that someone thinks about you, you just go your merry way and live happily without that knowledge. But if they tell you what’s on their mind and it happens to be critical, then suddenly your happy state is disrupted and you might feel very hurt, ashamed, and embarrassed. That’s always been my experience anyway. I’ve even been told I’m too sensitive, but you know, I would prefer to be sensitive than numb or thinking that I have to get tough and lose my human feelings even when they’re uncomfortable or painful.
You’ve found that philosophical questions are a niche interest, so not good for a common connection with most people. Do you have any other interests? Your bafflement at (say) their interest in smalltalk is only the reverse of theirs at questions of eternity; if you’d like them to overcome their bafflement, try overcoming yours too. Then you’ll find common ground.
Yes, but the individual in question was mentally handicapped, (Literally) always incredibly cheerful.