TL;DR — Congratulations, It’s a Weirdo!

(This was scribbled in my notebook a while back; I found it while I was looking for a scab­prompt. Don’t know what made me have this thought, but it’s too late to filter now.)

So people tell you you’re weird. Or maybe they don’t. Either way, you may have a suspicion that you are. Good for you! Now go somewhere that celebrates your special kind of special­ness, the sooner the better.

I realize this seems like a thinly­veiled ‘come to SCA’­post, (it kind of is) but it’s really not. This isn’t specifically for advertising­weirdos; there are odd people in any profession. Who ever heard of an ‘extremely normal’ genuis? Van Gogh, Einstein, Cobain were all kind of weird.

We did a thought­gathering exercise a while back, and one of the things we were asked to write was ‘advice to my children’ (or something like that). On the flipboard, I wrote ‘Normal People Suck.’ Now, take the misdirected frustration out of that, put a positive spin on it, and you have something resembling useful advice: Stay Weird.

I’m not suggesting you be entirely uncritical in your acceptance of weirdness — self­criticism can be useful too: less Manson­weird, more Tesla­weird.

Your weirdness is gold. The sooner you see that, the better off you’ll be. Wherever your breed of weird is needed, that’s where you should go — whether it be a school, a job, or a community based around what you like doing or what makes you feel good.

I realize I’m not the first person to ever point this out, I just wanted a chance to repeat it, because it deserves repeating.