Why does everyone, myself included, have this strange, mushy self-questioning period from 17 to 19? God damn that was unfullfilling, all this "who am I, where am I going, whats the best way" stuff. Thank goodness that at around 21 or 22, you emerge from that period and say, "Hell with this, I'm going to DO what I WANT". Suddenly you don't have a thousand questions anymore. Until then, you get to play 20 questions with yourself till the cows come home.
If you're talking about highschool, I hear you. I was an outcast properly, literally no friends (except outside school). Youll certainly want to make your peace with the establishment though if you want money and a successful life (in the traditional sense), plus a guy with your brain really belongs at college, I think, and could be useful to alot of people. So I hope you didn't get too far off the rails.
Find a way back into the establishment, even though you've been ejected once to the periphery. All real power, money and success is to be had through the establishment (in one way or another) unless you envy poor artists, singers and English teachers. These people are all very in touch with their feelings and they all have to check how much they pay for groceries in a given month. Dont let the beauty of your soul lead you into making impractical long-term decisions.
I'm sure this introspection was real enough for you but without any external points of reference its impossible for me to follow, but its dually noted.
You're obviously not a mediocre person, so its hardly surprising you find the idea of mediocrity repellent. Continue striving, you already are set on a course that precludes the possibility of mediocrity, but if you keep it up you can get really far away from the middle point. Basically, you've already gone really far astray, now just keep going till you find your own patch of ground, and set up a house there.
This isn't even a question except in your mind, you're looking at a grey figure in a painting and asking whether its black or white. In the end you will definitely do BOTH: pursue the "lower pleasures" of human camaraderie while being torn towards whatever it is for you is special enought to be considered 'transcendent' (ascendent?). If you go too far to either side of the scale that part of your nature that demands the other one will suffer, causing you to adjust. There is the sadness of too many books and the sadness of too much (poor) human company. I suspect you will oscillate between these two extremes until you find a balance that fits you.
By assigning first place to one and second to another, then looking to see if the first priority is bringing enough fulfillment vis-a-vis the second priority to justify its higher ranking. Everything that starts off good will first seem to be an obsession... then the realization comes, "I dont actually like this THAT much," and then it becomes just another little thing in your life. Its like this with pvssy, learning, art, languages, travel.
Just be sure to keep drinking lots of fluids throughout the course of the day and avoid sugary snacks. No, this is another calibration thing where you will experiment, take one thing too far, swing back in the opposite direction too far, and strike a balance. What appears to your mind now as binary yes-or-no possibilities will gradually emerge as balances that you have to maintain between two things. At first one understands a dichotomy, and 'feels' only the inherent contradictoriness, and imagines oneself only being able to fulfill ONE of these possibilities. But you as a human are labile and demand variety; I'm not fond of touchy-feely phrases but "life is like a dance" and alternating between these different things is what gives it this quality.
This reminds me of your other thread where you talked about falling in love like a real man. I felt that was a bit unjust because alot of SoSuavers come from a position of being the lover... the lover whose girl fvcked the other guy. I don't think anybody discovered this board without unrequited love causing him a life crisis, so your admonition appears off-base when seen in that light.
Frankly, you're getting ahead of yourself. You have a great analytical machine in between your ears and you want to use it to figure out the answers... but for these questions, it simply takes years of interacting with the world to settle them. There is no quick way out, or trick. Its all very non-linear, there is no "answer" in the normal sense, its more like a groove that you develop that works for you.
Thats why when you ask people these questions, they always shrug their shoulders and tell you something about their own lives. The real answer to these questions will emerge in the next 5 years of Gubby's life and will be specific to him. In short: keep striving.
My curiosity is an integral patt of me, and I think that I will always be a philosopher of some sort... just as you seem to be.