Do Not Force The Weird, Bro

I was born to an itinerant family and one unfortunate implication of this — in a long list of unfortunate implications of moving about — is that I have met a lot of people. And they share a lot of things in common, but one thing stands starkly as a binding quality.

I do not like them.

But I cannot blame them, really. The world is a generic serpentine line-up of randomly-yet-patterned generation of faces and attributes that everybody looks like and thinks like everybody (forget the ‘we are unique!’ bullshit; nobody’s patronizing that kiosk anymore).

Suit and tie, jeans and shirt, fake bum and PhotoShop augmentation. A tepid homogenous stew that is humanity.

Which is why I cannot blame the people who grasp at anything — and everything — that makes them come across as different from other people.

So we keep afros to differentiate ourselves from the hordes of tame-haired humans, unwittingly registering in the Department of Generic Natural-Haired Howdy-Doers. We pierce our noses to say ‘down with people with clean, healthy, unperforated septums!’ — basically filing an application to join the Leaky Nose Committee. Remember the non-conformist who gave up the white-collar life and joined a biker gang to be ‘different’?

These jokes write themselves.

The point is: I empathize with the need to define our own identity. Because who wants to be lost in the sauce? I don’t even know what the sauce is but I do not want to be lost in it. The only problem is when people force the weird, you know?

I had the unique displeasure of meeting the younger brother of my friend once. And after our conversation, as I saw him off, I said ‘take care, man.’

And he said ‘I don’t take care — I TAKE CHARGE!’

‘Huh?’

‘I TAKE CHARGE!’

What does that even mean?

Are You Faking The Weird?

You probably are, if you read a book or saw a video that told you that you have to leave a lasting impression in the minds of people by doing something unconventional.

Allow something more tangible than the fact that you wore an orange pair of glasses to a job interview sell you. Something tangible like, you know, actually remarkable achievements, maybe?