Eccentrics

"Alienation produces eccentrics or revolutionaries". When I saw this Peanuts picture which has to be a new meme, I noticed an art show in NYC used that as their title. I wasn't surprised. Maybe they got some outsider artists in there, I hope so. That is an interesting quote that gave me a lot of thought. Eccentrics have always fascinated me. When I can find a book that is self-written and self-published and different, I am intrigued. People out of the ordinary, often have interesting stories to tell. 

One advantage of being thrown outside the city walls in the metaphorical sense of human society is it does indeed give you a new view.  It can produce a non-conformist nature. If you are left alone as a child, your thoughts get room to move. You can see outside the busy work, and actually sit in nature and get something out of it.  The narcissists who lament the scapegoats who became the artists and thinkers they abhor need to get a clue. They helped produce us, as we looked at the pods while very young and didn't want to be one too!

People always talk about "artist" personalities where they are the "outsiders" or "outcasts" of society. Artists often are eccentric. Aspies equal eccentric. I actually love the word eccentric, for some reason I picture an intellectual in Britain wearing self-designed outfits living in a flat or an apartment who is studying and drawing nothing but turtles, or some other extreme interest or pursuit.  They are curious, they want to "know", they "question things" and say "There is a better or different way."

 I often wondered how I would turn out if I was one of those people who had a normal body and life? Would I happily vote Republican and eat Big Macs? Would I be reading Harlequin novels and mowing my lawn and helping my 2.0 children off to college? It's hard to know. I had this weird dream the other day where I was this normal person living in a suburban house and going down these stairs in this thin body and for some reason I was obsessed with getting the kitchen floor waxed. The dream was a nightmare of sorts. In the dream, I ask, "What happened to me?" It was strange. A parallel universe or life? The dream world makes no sense at times. Am I pretentious for having thoughts when viewing people on TV thinking, "Why are they so much the same?" Maybe some of these emotions are centered on wanting to be normal. I had my times frustrated at being the square peg that didn't fit in the round hole. 

 Unlike eccentrics who pursue their intellectual interests alone and often unrecognized, I suppose revolutionaries are formed too via alienation but they are the more charismatic set, looking more like Jim Morrison with a lot more of narcissism to get people to follow their cause. Revolutions make a mess but I suppose alienation forms a root there too. Would Hitler be as much of a problem if a few jerks at an art school hadn't been so picky? There an art jury determined the fate of the world and not in a good way. 

The alienated can channel their "rebellion" for bad or good. Going against the edicts of a society, can be channeled for good in the creative world and to bring in new ideas. Some eccentrics become tomorrow's geniuses while many even if unrecognized at least chose a new script and a life of integrity.

 However alienation can lead one to the "rebellion" that takes one down the road to the jail house and court and being a problem.  Revolutions more often then not bring more misery and a mess, and just a new set of sociopaths in charge even if revolution sometimes is used for a word for GOOD changes that aren't bloody. I'll take the eccentrics anyhow.