People are strange...

Before anyone accuses me of lifting the title of this post from a Doors song of the same name let me first say that your accusations are completely correct and I applaud your astute observation skills.

People are indeed strange.

I am strange, of this I am sure, for I have been told this by many people over many years and the law of averages leads me to agree with them... ALL OF THEM!!! Muahahahaha!

Strangeness is a relative term however.

I have a neighbour who likes to hang out her washing wearing nothing more than a towel... tied around her waist! (I'll leave you to draw conclusions). Could she be considered strange? Perhaps...

Ok, yeah, she is a bit. She drinks my coffee, smokes my cigarettes and talks my ear off whenever she visits, which is just about everyday.

A few weeks ago I was sitting in a park not far from my home. I wasn't doing much more than checking emails and facebook and reading a bit of news on my phone just to kill some time. I was approached by a haggard old man reeking of alcohol staggered towards me and asked if he could sit on the seat opposite me. We got to talking and several times he asked if I was comfortable to talk with him or if I would prefer him to just move along. He was drunk and quite talkative and the more I talked to him the more I wanted to talk to him, despite his repeated offers to 'move along'.
He claimed to be 60-ish and appeared quite fit for his age. He spoke of studying his music degree at the conservatorium where he mastered in Jazz Studies. We talked for over an hour about music, politics, religion and science. Despite his inebriated state he spoke quite calmly and was impressed that I could drop names like Benny Goodman, Oscar Peterson, Charlie Christian and Zachariah Sitchin. He smiled when I used Kenny Rogers' "Coward Of The County" as an example of the point I was trying to make and then was blown away when I sang the first half of the song.
Eventually it came time for me to head home but before that we made a time to meet one fortnight later at about the same time. All going well he'll remember (even though he claimed his drunkeness might prevent that).
Was he strange? Yeah, of course. Would people think I'm strange for talking to him and then wanting to talk again at another date?.... most likely.

People ARE strange...

All of us...

We all have our faults, we all have our strengths. Being 'strange' is neither a fault nor a strength.
Strangeness is what makes everything worthwhile. I'd hate to sit down and talk with someone that I thought was 'normal' in every sense of the word because that person to me would seem more like a mindless automaton just existing and not really making any sort of impression on those around them.

I might see someone walking down the street and for whatever reason I may think that they're strange. It's not a derogatory term to me at all. It expresses differences. In fact, "different" could be interchangeable with "strange" under most circumstances anyway.

Throughout my life I've seen so many people getting so incredible upset and stressed that they don't "fit in" or "belong" somewhere. Well, there is a solution to this attitude.

Recognize that you're different.
Accept that other people are different.
Realize that to many you may be a little strange.
Try to look at the things that you find strange about others. You may find that the strange things are those that become most interesting to you.
Embrace the strangeness. Be at one with the strangeness.

You don't need to be able to curl your tongue. You don't need to walk backwards when crossing the street. You don't need to dress as a cat and go to 'furry' conventions. You don't need to build your dream home out of a messy conglomeration of beer bottles, ice cream containers and Lego. You don't need to wear platform shoes, pantaloons and a pirate hat... and while there's nothing wrong with any of the aforementioned things there is one thing that is most important of all...

You just need to be YOU!

You're strange, I'm strange, we're all strange.

Some of the most interesting people I have talked to in my life all have 'labels' attached to them;

'Drunks'
'Schizophrenics'
'Intellectually disabled'
'Bums' or 'homeless'
'Geeks', 'nerds', etc... and the list goes on.

Labels mean nothing. ABSOLUTELY nothing. If you get the chance, as I often have, to talk to someone who is 'homeless' or 'schizophrenic' or a 'drunk' you'll find out one thing that will stay with you forever...

They're strange... and that's a good thing. Underneath it all is a person, similar to you and I. For whatever reason they are who they are and once the 'labels' are broken down and you're speaking to them as another 'strange' person you'll find out that there are many things to be learned from others.

I use labels, we all do. So I'm not trying to say that I don't. I am saying that the labels aren't important. They are like the box that contains cake mixture. The box is unimportant, all it does is provide is with a general overview of what you're going to get. Once the box is discarded you can get to work on putting together the important part... the cake. Similarly, you can meet someone as a label (eg; a 'drug addict', a 'lawyer', a 'nerd', a 'neurologist' or one of the 'elderly') and eventually you can get rid of the label and meet the real person inside the box (so-to-speak).

I'm going to finish this post sometime soon... I didn't end up writing what I was going to write but randomness can be fun right? :)