We’re all weird, but most people would never want to wear such a label with pride because being weird is viewed as something bad.
You’re the outcast. The freak.
The one that no one wants to be around. You’re not like everyone else, and that’s a problem.
When I was young, if I perceived someone as weird, I too used to believe it meant that something was wrong with them. Multicoloured hair? You’re a bit strange. Multiple facial piercings? Better be careful. Facial piercings and tattoos? I need to stay far away.
We’ve been told how and who we should be at each stage of our lives, so we believe that we have the perfect roadmap to being human. If people fail to follow the roadmap, they're shamed, criticised, or rejected in one way or another.
Why are we all weird and why should we embrace our weirdness?
Being weird means nothing more than being human.
It’s being an individual.
It’s doing or being something or someone that others don’t like or understand.
It can even mean doing something that others can’t do but, maybe, would secretly love to be able to do: Calling a person weird is merely an attempt to hide their jealousy. It’s even defined as something that’s not natural in one dictionary, yet in another, it defines it as fantastic.
We’re all weird, and we’re fantastically human
Refusing to claim our ‘weirdness’ is a refusal to appreciate and claim all of who we are.
It doesn’t mean that we should justify a person’s harmful behaviour because we don’t understand why they are behaving in such a way. Protecting ourselves and others from harm is important.
But when someone is doing no harm and simply doing the best they can in life in their own unique way – which is difficult for another to wrap their head around – does it mean that there’s something wrong with them? Of course not.
People, however, don’t like to be confused. It creates internal discomfort that they want to eliminate as soon as possible, but they don’t know how to relieve the discomfort.
It may even be that they simply don’t want to understand someone's way of being. They believe what they believe, and they’re not interested in changing their minds, or, at the very least, opening their minds to a different reality.
So, instead of accepting people’s differences or finding a way to deal with their own discomfort, or even getting comfortable with feeling such a way, they expect someone else to relieve their discomfort for them. In other words, they want those they don't understand to conform to whatever they believe.
Once that happens, all is well again in their world. They're happy because others suppress some or all of who they really are.
If no one changes for them, they're stuck feeling uncomfortable, and as far as they’re concerned it’s everyone else's fault. It may not be stated explicitly, but their resulting expressions and words are more than enough to give that impression.
But everyone’s ultimate goal is to feel content more of the time, and what they perceive as contentment varies, so why would we waste time believing that our version of contentment will automatically be someone else's?
It’s true that it can feel incredibly challenging to stand back and take someone exactly as they are, especially if you’ve held certain beliefs for most of your life, or when those beliefs are rooted in tradition and you’re dealing with a family member.
Even I sometimes get caught up in trying to get those closest to me to do things the way that I think they should be done. We want the best for our nearest and dearest after all, so a little guidance here and there might be needed. But then comes the challenge of leaving them to be their ‘weird’ and wonderful selves.
The question is are we willing to accept the challenge of acknowledging our weirdness? And can we take it one step further by encouraging others to welcome theirs too?
The more comfortable we are with our ‘weirdness,’ the more comfortable others will be with theirs.
The more we make space for someone, the more we make space for ourselves to just be.
Instead of creating a vicious circle of judgement, blame, and rejection, we create a welcoming circle of curiosity, acceptance, and compassion.
The truth is you could swap the term weird for many other similar terms – eccentric, bizarre, peculiar, but they amount to the same thing and will always be a representation of humans in action.
They don’t need to mean anything bad. It’s only in believing that they’re bad that we miss out on all of what it means to be human.
We’re not our or anyone’s words. We are not our or anyone’s thoughts. We may use labels to navigate our way through life, and that’s okay. But the moment we detach from them is the moment we drop into a place of more peace and calm, although not always so easy.
The word ‘weird’ then becomes nothing more than a demonstration of our need as humans to find a way to answer the myriad of questions that may arise when we want to understand but simply can’t get our heads around what we’re hearing or seeing.
Why would they act that way?
Why would they dress that way?
Because they’re weird.
The questions are answered; the confusion is eradicated; and we feel happy with the answer, all the while not realising that we just made something up to reduce our own discomfort. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the person to whom we’ve assigned the label.
So, instead of making the word ‘weird’ mean anything bad and then trying hard not to be described as such, let’s all be exactly that. All it means is that we’re alive and doing the best we can with what we have every day.