I am a weirdo. By my own definition as well as by any societal measure, I am weird. This is neither a brag nor lament so much as a simple statement of my place in all this, at least as I perceive it. I am able to view my weirdness dispassionately. Which is, I suppose, weird.

While many I suspect have come to this conclusion in my regard, it may come as a surprise to some of them to realize that I understand this. The crazy that knows he is crazy as opposed to the crazy that thinks he’s sane. Not that I seek it or go out of my way to perpetuate it, but much like being, say, black, or short, the acceptance of it as a fundamental personal reality goes a long way toward finding a level of social harmony, where being weird is just, well, weird.

And while a level of blackiosity or even shortitude is socially and culturally, if not desirable, at least tolerated, weirdness is its own civic division, like goat’s ass breath or awful hair. It is to draw attention for all the wrong reasons, like a loud noisome fart during a wedding or funeral, at that perfect moment when silence has descended and the audience is rapt with sentiment and reflection. A Prozac moment, which defines you for generations to come among family and friends – he’s the one who ruined Mama’s eulogy and cleared the first three rows on the groom’s side of the chapel for BooBoo’s nuptials. It is infamy as opposed to fame.

I suspect my weirdness is the result of several factors: genetically, as both my parents had lots of weird tendencies which appear to have accumulated and imprinted onto me. This isn’t to say I didn’t get an abundance of their good qualities as well, more to acknowledge that they had more weird tendencies than good ones, and in my case the good ones only serve to spotlight the weird ones. Most weird people at least have the courtesy to be quiet about it.

But displaying weirdness, as the interweb has proven repeatedly, is very popular presently and often weirdness popularized becomes the new standard for normal. Which makes people who don’t go for such contrivances weird, perpetuating the cycle of weirdishness ad odballium.

Some might point to drugs as the culprit, but clearly such tastes aren’t by any social standard weird as half the nation is on one drug or another at any given time. Ah, but the kind of drugs: not the good, safe or deadly, legal, socially acceptable drugs, like cigarettes or booze or pharmaceuticals or even over-the-counter pain relief and medicinals, which combined kill about a million of us a year, but the awful, socially demonized, un-governmentally-sanctioned ones – the mind altering kind. The kind that, combined, kill closer to 20,000 people in the USA a year. And to be honest, I, weird as I am, never trucked much with the ones that came with a body count. At least the illegal ones.

Don’t get me wrong – I have known well panoply of legal drugs and they didn’t abate my weirdness one bit. Frankly, by any real measure they only made me weirder. Weirder still. Alcohol and prescription pharmaceuticals were the worst – they made me at times unrecognizably weird, like still being weird but being someone else who is weird. A different weird guy in the same old weird me. I might be a weirdo and all but even I know that if one is resigned or inclined to druggish proclivity, then it behooves one to choose the drug best suited for one’s idiosyncrasies.

I’m fairly certain that had I never taken a drug, legal or weird, my mind would be far more sharp; I would be more intelligent. I might have even attained smartness over time. But my weird tendencies drew me unto druggishness young and my effective function – intellectually, mentally, emotionally – has been compromised. Smart as aspiration, not achievement.

I, in all my weirdness, understand that being smart, while holding a level of personal appeal, has a severely limiting aspect socially. Most people aren’t really that smart, so being smart demands that communication can only function based upon the intelligence of the dumbest person in the conversation. Where there is no understanding, there is no communication.

I realize then that had I forsaken the pleasure, fun, elation, ecstasy, awareness or experience that can only be achieved through the ingestion of certain emollients, I could have been so smart as to have nobody to talk to because no one would understand me, nor would I want to talk to most people because they wouldn’t interest me. Being too smart is weird too.

But that isn’t my problem. Not to suggest that I have a problem. But if I did, being too smart wouldn’t be it. Frankly, most people don’t want to talk to me that much anyway, I suspect because they think I think I’m too smart, nor do they interest me all that much – unless I’m properly intoxicated. Then the conversation takes precedence over the individual participants and becomes interesting because of engagement, not individual capacity.

Hell, even I think that’s weird. But more than my independently minded hair or apparently uninspired sartorial inclination, my perception expressed defines my weirditude more than any other factor. I say weird things because I see the world quite differently than the average fellow. Most people adhere to some religious persuasion or another, follow some messianic type or another and many of those who don’t still represent themselves as ‘spiritual’. I am not ‘spiritual’ and I don’t believe in any human notion of divinity. Not a fucking one.

Weird.

Most of my fellow voting age humans express a preference for some kind of republican or democratic party, politically, others prefer the independent or even green parties. I don’t party with those types; I did when I was younger but grew out of it by about 30 when I realized they were just a different face of the same coin. A coin that we’re in the pocket of.

Weird.

I never accept the official narrative at face value in the case of any momentous event. I operate from a perspective that if one is inclined to lie to me about things, as our leadership is openly wont to do, then I should bear that in mind when they tell me things and weigh what they say against appreciable reality. Not taking admitted liars at their word strikes me as reasonable thinking. Hence I don’t believe JFK was killed by two random gunmen, or that RFK was shot in the back by a guy in front of him, or that JFK Jr.’s plane just happened to suddenly fall from the sky, or that those massive steel buildings just miraculously collapsed into the course of most resistance, their own footprints, on 9-1-1.

Weird.

I don’t accept that money is real. The evidence supports the creation of money as a way for some people to have huge amounts of it and all the power that is accorded it, its inventors, while it is used to stratify and demoralize those with only enough to subsist upon, its slaves. As money is created by fiat or design, by merely typing figures into a computer somewhere, all those starving so that some people can have more of those invented numbers than others are the victims of capital. I feel capitalism is the worst thing to happen to humanity. Capitalism is what makes companies like Dow and Monsanto produce known toxic substances that enter the food chain and contaminate all of us – poison for profit.

Capitalism is what makes companies like Pfizer and Merck flood the market with pharmaceuticals, with horrific side-effects, one of which is hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. Capitalism is what makes companies like Boeing and General Dynamics and Halliburton demand a perpetual state of warfare so they can continue producing things which destroy us – for profit. For figures on a piece of paper or computer monitor, the world is consumed and devoured, raped and desolate. This is what I think, hmm.

Weird.

I don’t believe. I understand reality as it exists, accept that it changes and adapt as best I can when those changes occur. Of course the odd challenge will exist: can I know for certain say, the sun will ‘rise’ or do I not operate under the belief that such will occur?

In the context of existence, if the sun doesn’t ‘rise’ I won’t be around to debate the issue, nor will anyone else, so such distinctions make little point. Cosmological events or global evolution can and will continue to make things we feel certain of unsure. But clearly certain realities are absolutely necessary for human perception to occur – the sun goes super-nova or a close passing comet wreaks havoc, all bets are off.

In the framework of human enterprise, I operate based upon trust: I trust an honorable person will live up to their word, I trust a dishonorable person will not. Both people can be trusted entirely to behave in accordance with their natures. All peoples’ natures can change or adapt in intense or extreme circumstances: this we can trust as well.

But to tell me that a stranger in a suit is concerned about my well-being, a stranger in a uniform will protect me from harm or that a man in religious apparel can pave my path to some ill-defined after-life blissatorium, and for money no less, then I must state that I do - not - believe.

This above all other things makes me a weirdo.

I’m good with that.

Upon reflection, normal seems kinda ... terrifying.