Thanks for your response. I think too much (doesn't matter if I am male or female, I guess), but my interest in this area is deeply ingrained, plus I am curious if I have other people here with the same range of curiosity.
I did a little project on Lao Tzu, and then I got the idea to ask every person I met if they had even heard of them. Not a scientific test, but I would hypothesize that only 1 out of 100 replied positively. It gave me a sense of moderate but profound alienation.
To this day, I didn't realize this alienation wasn't from people not reading Lao Tzu, but subliminally me realizing that I was looking at a reflection and how I didn't really fit. Until my epiphany, I could not see the truth underneath my experiences.
Again, thanks!