I Admit that I'm Weird

My friend Lisa Golem shared this on Facebook. I love it so I posted it on my FB with the following comment:
"I'm not weird. There's a very normal guy inside fighting to get out. But I've developed some very good defensive mechanisms that are working at least for now."

But let's talk seriously about being weird.

I tried being normal and more or less succeeded in High School. My goal was to be accepted by the group and to have a few closer friends and I succeeded in that. I found a few roles that I could fill such as Science Guy, Chess Player, Ping Pong Player, 1st Trumpet in the School Band, Class Clown, Christian Guy, etc. I did OK. It was kind of nerve wracking keeping these roles going but they helped me achieve my goal of acceptance.

In 1968, finishing Grade 13, I was looking for my next set of roles. I joined the Revolution. Smoked some hash, started hanging around with Hippies and Freaks (those are synonyms, sort of what the Straights called us and what we called ourselves). I started learning some new roles such as Intellectual Reader, Long Hair, Blues Listener, Acid Head, Hitchhiker, Cool Dresser, Street Theatre Guy, Small Time Dealer, etc. Again I found the acceptance and friends I was looking for and the roles were more freeing and fun than my former High School roles. We Freaks had a strong value of individualism and self expression. We said, "Do your own thing," and we used the expression of "far out" to express approval of something that wasn't "in."

But a role is a role and if the goal is acceptance by the group, there is tension and nerve wrackingness.To the extent that one is following a role, even a self-chosen one, one tends to be isolated, first from yourself and then from others.

At this point - about 1972 - I began to get more desperate in my search for authenticity. I sought out people on the fringes of society. I read books about madness and mysticism and wondered if I would have to go mad in order to find myself and my place in the world. I saw a play called Pilk's Madhouse. One of the lines in the play asks, "Who is real in this house of mirrors?"

more to come...