The story behind the previous post; the Harry Potter world

I was working in the front section of the deli the other day. Two young guys came to the counter and asked for turkey and muenster cheese, which I sliced for them. (Now that I think about it, there was an unusual customer at the deli last year around this time, too, when some other stuff was going on. That's another story.)

These two guys both looked at me as though they already knew who I was. They both had a look of awe, excitement, attention, and a little bit of amusement, as though they were trying not to laugh, but they were also fascinated with me. I liked them. I looked at them, looked in their eyes.

I was imagining that they knew me by reading my blog and that I was like a celebrity to them. I think in reality my blog readers are just a few friends and family and random people now and then, because I'm not keeping track of the statistics, and I might be better off not knowing. I'm not making much of an effort to really advertise this blog.

I like to imagine that people know me and love everything about me, or, not necessarily 'love everything,' but agree with me about most of it and share a similar spirit with me.

This is the Harry Potter world fantasy. Harry Potter had a miserable, boring life with an abusive family who didn't understand him, who acted like they hated him, and a brother who bullied him. He always felt like an outsider, longing to someday meet his own kind of people.

When the other world finally invited him to join, he was surprised to find that everybody there already knew his name, and that he was famous, and that they had known about him all along. It's a feeling that somebody out there is supporting you.

A similar event happens in Atlas Shrugged when Ragnar Danneskjold gives Hank Rearden a bar of gold, and Hank finds out that he's been watching him all this time, and saving gold on his behalf, in some faraway hidden place, waiting for him until he is ready to join them.

Years ago when I started noticing the computer hacking incidents, I sometimes used that as a way to feel like somebody out there understood me, because they were that interested in what I was doing, and that fascinated with all of my activities. It wasn't like a 'fear' of being watched, but instead, a desire to be understood and valued by people. And it's also sometimes like feeling safe, like somebody is watching you and they wouldn't let anything happen to you. I don't mean that this is healthy or that what they were doing was okay; I just mean that when it's happening, it can seem like it fulfills certain needs or fantasies, the need to be understood and valued and protected.

So these two guys looked at me as though they already knew me. I don't know if they really did or not.

I know there are people out in the world who agree with me about important things and who share the same spirit I have.