Being a stranger.

"For long periods of my life,living in places where i did not belong,i have been a perfect stranger.I asked myself whether my sense of ohterness was the human condition.It certainly was my condition.
As with most people,my outer life did not in the least resemble my inner life,but the exotic place and circumstances intensified this difference.Sometimes my being a stranger was like the evocation of a dream state,at other times like a form of madness,and now and then it was just inconvenient.I might have gone home except that a return home would have made me feel like a failure.I was not only far away,i was also out of touch.It sounds as though i am describing a metaphysical problem to which there was no solution-but,no,all of this was a form of salvation."
(Paul Theroux/fresh-air fiend)