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"weird" and "normal" people
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
As a distinction between "weird" and "normal" people, an email from a friend the other day suggested that "normal" people are the ones we do not yet know well enough.
I like it.
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Comments
I'm sorry, and you are....who?
You guys all sleep naked right?
only when I'm in a normal bed. Mostly, up in the branches of my gingko, I tend to hang upside-down in my opossum suit....
I sleep in the closet with a skeleton, but that's a secret.
Normal's just a setting on a clothes dryer.
@genkaku
Totally agree, but what makes it interesting is it's relationship with our comfort.
Normal describes being able to make folks feel comfortable with their place within their tribe.
Weird just describes any disturbance of that comfort.
Since it's all an illusion, that comfort is dependent on not looking too closely at that illusion or the folks that represent it, especially oneself.
The 1st casualty of stumbling closer to that truth....is ones comfort.
When I was growing up, being weird was the worst possible thing. Now among kids, being weird is the better option. Striving for everyone to act and look the same isn't like it was 20 years ago here, which is nice to see. People are more comfortable with each other. I think some of that comes from a change in how special ed is handled here. For us, the "weird" kids were the kids with issues who had to be separated from the classroom. Now they have more tools so that even kids with significant challenges spend most of their time in their normal classroom. My son's graduating class is very small-35 students! My son is high functioning so most people don't know he has ASD. But there is a girl in their class who struggles more. She is graduating with the class and has been part of it in every way. The students never call her weird. They help her. They encourage her. She won a scholarship and her class gave her a standing ovation. To most of the kids, the weird ones are the kids who party and break the law. The adults are another story, but hopefully they learn from their kids some.
I know that's not what your post was necessarily addressing, but that is what came to mind for me. You're better off weird. It works. Normal doesn't really exist anyhow. It's just an average. Who wants to be average?
You have a skeleton?! Sheer luxury!
@how -- I won't ask the obvious question.
Normal is highly overrated.
The link pretty well says it for me. I was a weird dreamer of a kid from the time I started school. In retrospect I was/am ADD (passive) although I'm not sure that was even a diagnosis in the 60s/70s and it certainly was not treated or accomodated in my schools. I was seen as unmotivated, lazy and needing to try harder. It was very frustrating.
I think this is so awesome
That's huge progress over the last 40 years! There were kids who I now suspect were high functioning ASD. Again, in those days, no real understanding or support from the schools. These kids were mercilessly tormented. It brings me down just thinking about it.
Where I live there's a bumper sticker I see more and more of: Keep Vermont Weird
I know I'm normal, but as for everybody else well.............
"Everybody's somebody else's weirdo!"
The French have the saying "On est tous le con de quelq'un" (we are all someone else's idiot)
Or the one about our considering normal the people whose neurosis matches our own.
It is through ignorance that our discriminating consciousness splits nama-rupa into "me" versus "them."
And through the illusion of duality, the line of progression leads to "my skandhas are normal, yours are weird."
LOL...
Weird is at least interesting.
Thanks, @SpinyNorman !
The compliment "You're very....Interesting!" was the first one my H ever paid me.
Now, I know what he meant....!
It's one of the things I've appreciated about being involved in Buddhism, meeting some really interesting people.
"Weird" is the new black in Buddhist circles, I heard...
How about different Shades of Grey...?
... and i was thinking for the past few days that i am the only weird person on this planet currently... but the first post of this thread suggests like i got companions, only thing is i need to find it out
I've always found that people consider a weird person as someone who is different than the person doing the name-calling.
Soon I will be normal! [Lobster haz plan!]
My friend,
You told your wife and child you were dead according to another thread. When my sister asked me in an ambulance on the way to the emergency services whether she was a vampire, she had gone a few steps beyond weird.
DO NOT confuse humour, crazy wisdom and light heartedness with other mental conditions that need non forum medical attention.