Recently, I overheard a friend tell a joint friend of ours that he and I are the weirdest people she knows. This was all in jest, of course, but I wanted to go interrupt their conversation and thank her for the best compliment I have received in quite some time. I call this a compliment because I have always taken great pains to be as weird as possible, as often as possible. And now, some of you who know me well may say that I jest, for you have known me to be normal enough over the years.
The context of the statement, and the sphere in which I exercise the trait, both refer to likes and dislikes, mannerisms of speech, and style of humor. This friend called me weird for being a fan of something that only a true geek can possibly appreciate. She laughed as she said it because she recognizes in herself a healthy dose of that same "weirdness". It takes one to know one, they say.
I must admit that my interests include things way outside the realm that our current American culture considers "normal". For instance, how many people do you know that would sit in a coffee shop and type a blog post like this one in a computer programmer's text editor while listening to Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells II Live"? Not many, I'll wager. Then there are other oddities like wearing my SAS half-dress / half-casual black shoes with white socks, cargo shorts, and an Empire Strikes Back t-shirt... and, yes, in public. I'm sure people must look at me at such times and think I am quite the dork. The great thing is that I really don't care because my feet are comfortable and that is more important to me than someone's comparison of me to the "norm".
Growing up as a teen, I tried the whole "fit in with the cool kids" game. Like most, I found it to be quite painful. What was cool one day was lame the next. I could never seem to keep up. By high school, I had given up on that and decided to figure out who I am, not who others expect me to be. I found it quite freeing.
The problem with being "normal" is that society's definition of that changes routinely. Sometimes in less than a week's passing. I'm sure the Facebook era must speed that process up. Thankfully, I wouldn't know because I haven't participated in popular culture in more years than I care to count.
I do observe people, though, who attempt to be normal and fit in with society's expectations. I also remember the stress of it all. Since the definition of normal changes so often, a normal person must constantly redefine themselves. They must change their wardrobe, add to their music collection, see movies they might otherwise care less about, arrange their schedule around the weekly new episodes of the "in" tv shows, and keep tabs on what their friends are liking and disliking in an effort to stay aligned with current styles.
This can wreak havoc on the psyche. Normal people can never truly "Know Thyself", for they are ever-changing, a ghost of the culture around them. I see the emptiness in their eyes, and I can feel their pain, for I remember it well despite the years that have passed. How can our culture be anything but shallow when its members are slaves to the process and can never dig deeply enough inside to discover more meaningful ideals?
Then there are the counter-cultural, who, in their attempts to reject the prevailing culture, become the flip side of that same coin. They spend too much of their time becoming familiar with what is normal so they can mock it and become the opposite. They put themselves in the same slavery to change as the people they are trying to contradict. In so doing, they often end up even more emotionally scarred, but in ways they may never realize until they have wasted a great deal of their life.
The weird ones, on the other hand, can truly know peace because we have stepped outside that storm and have spent enough time in the silence to know ourselves and appreciate ourselves for who we are. We seem weird to others because our interests are not confined to categories, but span all areas of human creativity and interaction. We seem to be weird because we wear things that are out of style, but we are ignorant to the styles and we are just content wearing clothes we find comfortable and interesting.
There is great freedom in choosing a haircut because it is comfortable and easy to manage, in listening to music which few of our peers are familiar with because it moves us, in watching a movie for the fifteenth time that makes us laugh while missing out on the movie everyone else is talking about at work, in choosing a car that fits our practical needs despite what "everyone else" is driving, etc....
Yes, being weird is highly underrated. If you are feeling unsure as to who you are, insecure, insignificant, lonely in a crowd, confused, or tired of life, I recommend you give it a try. Jump out of the maelstrom and analyze who you are. Go see a movie that you think sounds interesting regardless of whether the people around you think it sounds stupid. Spend some time sampling music on a site like last.fm, pandora.com, or grooveshark.com, and ignore the "Most Popular" lists. Buy some clothes or shoes that you find comfortable and appealing to you, and ignore what others around you are wearing.
In short, find yourself... and stay there. You will no longer have to redefine who you are every other month to keep up with the crowd. You can experience the joy of being just the person God made you to be, as you finally have the time to discover who that is. And when someone laughs at you for wearing "that dorky t-shirt with old Nintendo Zelda graphics on it", you may just find yourself laughing with them, but with the laughter that comes from the joy of being free.
P.S. As I finish this, I realize how fortuitous that, despite having planned to write it for about a month, I am just now getting to it on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who embodied the ideal of rejecting what society considers normal and becoming who God has made us to be, no matter how foolish that might appear to those around us. St. Francis, pray for all of us that we may experience the freedom of this foolishness.
Todd
October 4, 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment