Am I weird?
Recently, I heard that I am weird. In general, I don’t care about people’s opinions, but I heard it from my loved ones. I have started thinking about it. Am I really weird? What does it actually mean? Who is weird and who is not? I had to overthink it and after that, I just asked “why?”. One of my loved ones answered me superficially. Something like: “You are bizarre because you are”. I knew I must force the second person and find out what “I am weird” means. Moreover, my best friend also put it lightly and said that I am peculiar because I do a lot of odd things. I didn’t stop. I asked again: “What kind of odd things?”. Then he spilled the beans.
Before I explain why I am peculiar, I would like to depict a definition of “weird” and “normal”.
Weird: “Strange and different from anything natural or ordinary”; “Very strange and unusual, unexpected, or not natural”; “to be marked by something peculiar, incomprehensible”.
Normal: “Someone who is like people expect; sane and ordinary”.
As you noticed, there are not any specific definitions. Everyone of them includes only general words. Unfortunately, we are not able to figure it out with dictionaries.
As I mentioned, I asked my best friend to tell me why he claims that I am weird. There are all the reasons below.
To-Do List
I am bizarre because I schedule everything in an app. Furthermore, I create projects there and add simple everyday tasks and my habits. According to my friend’s philosophy, life doesn’t have any sense when everything is scheduled, and, in his opinion, I have exactly that kind of life. I heard that in my life nothing is spontaneous.
I agree to disagree with him. He is right that we need spontaneity, sometimes we should let our hair down, but should life look like that every day? On the other hand, is it possible to have a job, a family, a child, an apartment and associated issues? I don’t think so. If you are independent and responsible not only for yourself, you must manage things. In some cases, you are obliged to schedule chores. Due to management, you can control your things to do, and get a bird’s-eye view of everything you have to manage. If you have a system, I have a to-do list, it is a small chance to forget something, for instance, forget about a bill which is due until today, about an assembly in a school, about a shopping list etc. We don’t even know how many things we manage every day. Writing them down only helps us.
It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be spontaneous. We should, but not all the time. In my opinion, the best impulsive decisions are those which are made between scheduled things or during something which was planned. A simple example sprang to my mind. I was biking in Sweden two weeks ago, we had a map with a scheduled route, but I wanted to explore more. After a few kilometres, I broke away from the group and I was biking off the beaten path. I did it spontaneously, and there is an essence of impulsivity.
Data
The second peculiar thing I do is tracking some habits like how much water I drink every day, how many hours I sleep at night or how long my nap is. I didn’t mention sports statistics because it is normal for everyone, I hope so :). To tell you the truth, I am predisposed to counting everything, I simply like stats (even now I am glancing at the number of words I wrote). On the other hand, when it comes to essential health matters in our life, like sleeping and drinking water, is it really weird that I am aware of these priorities and I want to do it properly? If I had drunk one cup of water and three cups of coffee every day and slept four hours every night, would I be normal today?
Caffeine, alcohol and food
My friend said: “You don’t drink normal coffee, you don’t drink alcohol and you don’t even eat poultry. What do you live for?” Then I asked him: “Do I have to drink coffee, alcohol and eat poultry to live?” Fortunately, I don’t have to, but he still claims it is freaky. Why is it freaky? Because I don’t live like a majority of people? I don’t know.
I used to drink coffee, but I have noticed that caffeine has a negative impact on my body, especially when I had been drinking for a few days in a row. I had felt just sluggish. I have figured it out and currently, I drink decaf. When it comes to alcohol, I haven’t been drinking since the 2nd of May 2020, when the pandemic blew up. It was a spontaneous decision, additionally, as Mr Fantastic said in Fantastic Four, “…ethanol is harmful to your brain”.
My friend is right that I don’t eat poultry. Furthermore, there are more things I don’t eat, for example, ingredients like palm oil, high-fructose corn syrup and food which contains the periodic table. I am simply aware of what I put to my mouth and how significant it is. Does it make me weird?
To sum up
These are the reasons which make me a peculiar man, in my friend’s opinion of course. My friend is as specific as no one, but I am not going to describe his different behaviour and habits, it doesn’t matter. I wonder why he claims I am weird. Due to my different habits? Different approach to life? Because I am not like him? Don’t people understand that everyone is peculiar? Why are we, as a society, so narrow-minded? We should be more understanding, empathize with others and don’t judge a book by its cover. But if these all things make me weird, I am weird and I am proud of it.
