HSP's Unite!

my H entry today is hope, but my friend Olivia's entry is about HSP's or Highly Sensitive People.

read this description, and if you think you're an HSP or know one, Olivia has a longer description on today's post and also in a link on her sidebar to a great article she put up last year on HSP's. she also has several links to sites that will help you figure out if you're an HSP.

Excerpt taken from HighlySensitivePeople.com:
 Pearl S. Buck, (1892-1973), recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, once said about highly sensitive people:

"The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.

To him...
a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create —— so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating."

—Pearl S. Buck

yes, this is me. we're told that we're too sensitive, that we should just get over it, that we should develop thicker skin. we want to fit in, we try to overcome, but it's very difficult. it's how we're hard wired. it's easy to feel like we're alone, or even worse, a freak.

until i read Olivia's article a few months ago, i'd forgotten that i even was one. i'm glad she reminded me. it showed me i wasn't alone. Olivia is an HSP too. so is 20% of the population. i would imagine it applies to 20% of the bloggers out there, and probably a higher percentage of bloggers who are also writers. the two seem to go together sometimes.

if you're an HSP, i'd love to meet you. we're even planning on doing some kind of blogfest in the near future. we'd love to have you participate.