I am finally starting to see just how much of my thoughts and emotions up to this point were not my own.

I was thinking about this recently in regards to intellectual independence. If I listen to the same people I'll start leaning toward their ideas. It's best to decentralize right?

As far as the perception thing goes, it's a weird thing to do if you don't think like others. I'm a nerd. I love learning and I'm deeply fascinated by things people generally don't care about. Whenever I get excited and start firing this shit off I can see people tuning out. I'm always more surprised that there are people that view this stuff as a personal attack as if I'm only talking about certain topics because I want to parade around that I'm smarter than them or something. This is absolutely untrue, as I view everyone on this planet as my equal. I'm no better or more gifted than anyone else, just different.

I do perceive you as a hippy type, but that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. The only advice that I'd ever offer for that type of person, is that there is a game to be played in the grand social structure of everything. If you don't play, you're choosing to lose. I only have come to realize this because I once too was heavily invested in the idea of breaking societal norms, but unless you're at the top of the food chain, this doesn't really work in your favor.