Day 18: What?

What makes an eccentric? Who defines what an eccentric is? Well, the answer to the second question is easy. You don’t even have to waste a second thinking about it. Society does. Values and perceptions that have trickled down through time stick with us to this day and we have a very good idea of what is to be expected of a person who is supposedly, an eccentric. But how exactly do all of us come up with this same idea? No deviations among anybody?

Well to be honest, when we think about it, we all waver a bit here and there from the norm. But we all know what is to be expected of ourselves or someone else because we’ve been groomed that way, to take in societal teachings and behave a certain a way, and yes you can have your individuality, but if you waver a bit more than what’s allowed, you WILL be punished for it. And of course, the severity of punishments are also subjective. Relative to how much you wavered and which way.

No single person is the perfect reflection of the “norm” because like so many other things, being normal isn’t a single defined value.It’s the averaged out expectation set by society, and we all fall somewhere on that spectrum from too much to normal to barely. So one may think eccentricity is directly correlated to how much you waver away from the norm, in either direction and what intensity of it do you display.

But that’s not how it works. Let’s just consider one very simple scenario which is not a complete simulation of reality, but for the purposes of this - let’s say it: One way you go too much, you’re super energetic, you’re constantly doing things, wandering about and getting shit done. But you have a thing about you that doesn’t sit right with people. Your opinions are different and you’re vocal about them. You speak up, you do things that’s not hurting anyone but in fact is making lives better, making things better for so many people, but people who are silent bystanders - or even other in some cases - are not accepting of it? That gets you outcast. That gets you a new name. You’re not like everybody else, you’re an eccentric.

And then there’s the other direction. You lean toward the other end. You also have opinions and expectations, hopes and dreams, different from those around you. You do things too. You create art, you do valuable work, you do all kinds of things. But you keep it all to yourself. You’re barely ever vocal about enough it. You “keep to yourself”.

These people are to be labelled eccentrics too. But the “norm” is more accepting of them. At least on the surface. People are okay with the second direction because they feel like they don’t have to put up with anything. It’s timid. You’ll roll over and do what they want or you don’t even get in the way, they can again, have a say, have control.

But when it’s too much, it’s excessive for the generalized public. What people don’t know, what’s foreign, it scares them. It intimidates and hence the need for these classifications. Threat or non-threat? But wait what is this? How do we define this? Which group do we throw it in? When it can’t be generalized, it makes things complicated. It’s what stands out.

In reality, there’s nothing wrong with standing out, it’s just a bit away from the norm, from societal expectations. So then why are we all so obsessed with what other people think and weighed down by societal expectations? Because we never really take the time to use our evolved faculties to think it through. Especially in this day and age, when we should be increasingly critical of things, of the status quo, we have so much noise in our systems that we just accept what we’re told. And there does come a point where society just makes it so mind numbingly painful we just let go and become these people who mindlessly go about our everyday chores.

And so, we define people of these characteristics as something else. We come up with new words to label them with. Whether it be genetic, acquired or something else, classification makes it easier for our brains to process and accept the information it perceives in the world.

And that’s Day 18!