It’s Now Your Job to Be Weird. So get to work.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” (Hunter S. Thompson)

 I’ve had this little thought nugget hanging in my office for quite a while. It used to be a little bit of wishful thinking. It was a bit of assurance that all my quirks, my geekiness, my feeling just a little on the strange side, would serve me well in my professional life (and perhaps even beyond). When I first stuck it up there, I thought the world was already weird, and that I was responding to it appropriately with my weirdness.

Stuff got weirder, didn’t it? Our present circumstances don’t present a mere soupcon of weird. We’re in an economy-sized-seven layer-dip of weird. Reality is currently not-so-lovingly composed of a handful of plagues, a pissed-off planet, leadership more interested in flinging poo than helping, and a general sense that we just don’t understand one another…and that we don’t really want to. Education has gotten weird. Technology has gotten weird. Media has gotten weird. I’d like to hope that this is as weird as it gets, that we’ve hit bedrock and we just need to shovel our way out, but I think there’s probably plenty more weird bubbling away beneath us.

So, this is, as Mr. Thompson says, when we weirdos “turn pro.”  If you’re a weirdo who’s been maintaining your amateur status, it’s time to level up. If weird has been a hobby for you up until now, it’s time you got certified. If you’ve had a little weird on the back burner, but haven’t felt the gumption or guts to bring it out, cough it up.  

Full disclosure: it’s surprisingly joyful to be weird (and couldn’t we all use a little joy right about now?). Weirdos get to snort laugh and love dinosaurs and corner store candy well into our adult years. We can unapologetically appreciate bedheads and mismatched socks.  We get to joyfully recognize and acknowledge weirdness in others, and we can tell complete strangers that they are awesome in their weirdness. It’s nice work, if you can get it.  

It’s also a relief to be weird, particularly with our present set of challenges. Weirdos have long since recognized that there is no normal to get back to, that whatever normal used to be, it was kind of crappy. That’s why normal always felt a little strange to some of us. Any weirdo will tell you that normal can hurt, can be used as a weapon, a smokescreen used to cover all manner of monstrosities. Being weird means embracing the notion that to be human is to be a little bit odd. Think of how utterly distasteful it is to see yourself as just another tiny blip in the universe. We can’t pride ourselves on being a species that spawns rugged individuals, and then stomp all over anyone who tries to distinguish themselves. In one of those paradoxical ways, what unites all of us is our ability to be a little weird.

Weird gets things done too. It means asking “Why not?” and “Can we try?” It entails being okay with screwing things up and redoing them. It’s embracing possibilities and training yourself to ignore side eye. It’s taking the risks that are truly worth taking. So much of what we’ve accomplished over the past couple thousand years has been fuelled by weird.

Geeks, nerds, creatives, thinkers, tinkers, dreamers, overdoers, oversharers, we need you now. We need you to counter bad weird with good weird. We need you to stick a fork in hate by being weirdly curious about other people. We need you devoted to learning about what you don’t know about being human, unafraid to awkwardly stick out your hand and high five others for being who they are. We need you gathering up all the solutions to problems (big problems). We need the ideas you thought were too weird to work, the ones you were too shy to slap on the table or bring up in front of others. We need your weirdo flexibility and willingness to change.

We need you weird enough to keep yourself and others safe (ahem, masks). We need you buying local, walking places, growing food in your balcony planters, and using stuff until it falls apart. We need you clapping extra hard for struggling artists, celebrating unsung heroes, and making the first awkward move in building new relationships. We need you to be vocal about your love of science and reason. We need you shouting about beauty and truth and justice and love.

We need you to be weirdly vulnerable and authentic, to not let important conversations fizzle out. We need you to be the kid who keeps putting their hand up, who can’t leave well enough alone, who says the quiet part loud and makes people blush (but also listen). We need your weirdness in thinking critically, being curious and creative, and admitting you like and care about other people and things. We need weird to become your calling card, your vocation, your lifestyle, and your passion, all at once.

The going isn’t getting any less weird. And neither should you.