Could it be that some people are born but not alive?

This may not make a whole lot of sense, because I was just out having a drink with my old man, but here goes anyway.

As a teenager, I used to see documentaries on TV from time to time, talking about serial killers. I always found it worrying that I found it so easy to relate to the killers, specially when it came to psychopaths who allegedly understand but don’t feel emotion.

As a child I was instantly drawn to Spok on Star Trek as soon as I found out about him. I loved the idea of a logical being who did not feel emotions.

Before the age of 16–17 or so, I never felt a damned thing other than occasional anger, or other selfish emotions. I would watch movies where all kinds of emotions were displayed, and while I understood and could anticipate what reactions certain emotions would cause, I had never felt them my self, not really. Perhaps I once thought that I had felt it, but I never had.

I am now 28 years old. I am capable of making moral decisions, I feel empathy, and a wide range of emotions, but it was not always like that.

The more time passes, the more I am convinced that I was some form of the living dead previously. I am starting to suspect, that maybe I’m not born yet, or that perhaps I was only born recently.

See, I am still the same “me” as when I was 4 years old. The same emotionless and selfish creature that I was, still lives within me. There was no restart, my eyes have been open the entire time they have seen, I’m still me, yet somehow I’m not.

I can remember certain keypoints in my life, that I now suspect were responsible for kick-starting me in to being alive.

It has only been since I was 19 or so, that I have started changing. I am now capable of not only acting like I know, but knowing that I know what those people in all those movies felt.

The question is… before this gets any vaguer… Is it possible to be born, live, and yet not be alive?

Could it be something that only happens to a select few? or is it something everyone experiences?

Is it possible, that some people, are just walking shells until a certain age?

Is it possible that some people are never anything but a hollow shell?

I now feel like a person, like I exist, before I always felt unsure about who I was, I always knew what I wanted, but not always why. Is this normal?

Old folk… How much more is there to come?