An Indigo Growing Up

by Jorge Oliveira
(Lisboa, Portugal)

I was born to a lovely couple, with whom I still partake of my daily life. At the age of six, entering primary school, I used to wake up before 6.00 a.m. in order to make breakfast for my parents, as I was in a hurry to learn all and everything. My curiosity was never satisfied, I just wanted to get to school! My parents always made me feel it was important to get a degree of some sort; I was a rather successful student from an early age but always felt something huge lacking. Could never quite get what it was until I got to my teens.

All the adults in my vicinity were amazed by the way I used to get myself involved in studies/work, I used to care about every minor detail in everything I did and I used to have worries atypical to the common child my age. The first time I lost my sleep due to the realization of my own mortality was around 10 years old. I felt it more then anything else. I also fell in love for the first time age 4, I can still remember it fairly well. I remembered dreams everyday, sometimes 2 and 3 dreams a night. I had prophetic/lucid/déja vu dreams all the time.

Teens were the most difficult time. All people and surroundings felt alien. I procured ease of feelings in drugs and alcohol. By the time I was 18 and after my first big love crush/failure I started to give up on the commonly accepted way of acting socially, it never made any sense really, it was just the final straw, that special year - the last thing on my mind was entering college, but due to a big pressure on the part of my parents I finally enrolled.

I find that my greatest inner strength is inspiring people to become what they aspire to, something more, to grow actually, and so my greatest achievement has become the mastering of languages, of any sort - and I've been connecting with many friends all over the world, from all sorts of backgrounds, ever since. But it is hard, and mostly it becomes boring when one feels there's a whole network of habits and outdated means against you. I grow impatient. I try to find my inner peace nowadays, and music has become my favorite means for pouring out that which cannot be told otherwise. My feelings, my emotions, that which I cherish the most.


Empathy...I'll tell you of empathy...it's been my curse rather them my special gift all these years. I can't help but to instantly feel the mood of everyone around me, and because of that it's unbearable, more and more, to go out, to concert halls, to parties, wherever, unless I have this drug induced shield of some sort. Then I can act normal, and then I can act like one of the bunch. But it makes me weak. I wonder if I will ever find balance. You might think this could be a liability socially-wise. It’s not. I feel that, in order to be integrated, I must downgrade myself somehow (always felt that - mostly because of my impatience), although I have felt differently in some other countries/areas like Holland. It turns out it is a Indigo country lol.

I always felt better working by myself or in a leadership position, no doubt, and in creativity endeavors mostly. I am an architect, a musician, and am trying to get into my life's strongest calling, comics.

Extra sensibility to odors, sounds, activity is unbearable sometimes. I need my own corner.

Anyway I just wanted to share. I hope it may, somehow, turn out as a sort of relief or aid for someone, trying to figure his/herself out. I know I always felt out of place, and nowadays it is bliss to be able to connect to peers, and this is a great way to do it.

Thank you