“strange” you might seem, yet behind your mask dwells a gentle, questioning soul.

Mogwai from the movie Gremlins

The title of this post comes from an @ I received on Twitter from @CGAyling because… because… because… because… of the worderful (typo intended) things he does!

He took up a challenge I threw down on Twitter, the results can be found here: I came across time for you…

Those words…

“strange” you might seem, yet behind your mask dwells a gentle, questioning soul.

Show how perceptive people can be about us.

Although I do feel compelled to point out that my strangeness is not a mask. I do sometimes wear masks, the one used most often is – nothing to see here, move those eyes along now, I’m an ordinary person being ordinary. Of course me pretending to be ordinary makes me seem strange too. I fidget a lot when I’m trying not to appear odd to others. The mask has itching powder on the inside, and it gets unbearable to continue the charade so I rip it off and… freak out people who are already nervous until they run away screaming making the sign of the cross at me with their fingers. Like that ever works.

Frankly people who think they are not strange, who have labeled themselves as normal… freak me out. There is something a bit odd about being normal. And because I think that about normal people and things which are considered normal, that makes me strange.

The other day there was a prompt on the Daily Post about procrastination. Now normal people consider procrastination to be a bad thing, even though everyone procrastinates… except for perfect people who never do, because they do everything exactly when it should be done. Perfect people are really strange. Why is procrastinating considered a bad thing? It can save your life, by stopping you from boring yourself to death by doing something which you don’t want to do. It can be loads of fun, and things always get done during procrastination, things which feed the irresponsible, lazy, easy going side of us. There is value in laziness and irresponsibility, you just have to stand on your head to see it, and when you do, it is a beautiful sight.

And that’s what makes me strange to others. Looking at things while standing on my head. Flipping reality around. Asking questions. Questioning facts which are meant to be accepted and not prodded with a pointy stick because they might burst and reveal themselves to be overinflated theories or opinions wearing the mask of respectability. Why? Because that’s that… and someone, with a bego (big oh so big) ego, promoted them and got others to believe that something was a true truth, irrevocable and written in stone. Things written in stone last about as long as things written on other materials, especially if you have a big hammer.

Anyway…

I don’t actually experience myself as being strange, at least I didn’t until I did, and yet I don’t really, but I do. Let me explain… oh dear, no, don’t do that!

I only feel strange when I am around other people, when I am alone I feel normal.

I am strange because other people think I am, if they didn’t think it then I would not be strange at all. Not to them, not to myself. And I only seem strange to myself when I compare myself to others. A most bothersome habit which is considered normal.

I used to think this was just the sort of thing everyone experiences, we all suspect that others find us strange. They often do, but more often than not they don’t because they are busy thinking that we think that they are strange. We sometimes do, but more often than not we don’t because… you know.

I am strange. I can explain it astrologically… the fact that I love astrology is strange to some, because some are most wary of such weirdness of thought and practice. I can explain it psychologically… but really, everything is a disorder and disorders are frightfully orderly, with little lists and such. And some people find psychology to be strange. I like metaphysics, philosophy, and science, and all things which stretch the mind as far as it will go, then push it further.

Such things as what I likes to entertain and thinks… can make the most openly open mind shut down with an ism. People have their limits, especially when it challenges a belief they hold dear and upon which they have constructed their reality and identity. I am an ism they say, then explain why until your ears fall off from so much tedious verbosity… and you didn’t even ask them to explain because you really were not interested. But they don’t care if you’re interested or not, they are, so you must be made to be! You must be converted into a normal… which is often not normal to other normals who follow another ism.

Anyway…

I am… wiggle fingers… “strange”… wiggle fingers. Sometimes this is frightening to others, sometimes… it incurs a lesser degree of fear. Occasionally it fascinates, and people get too close to the strange beasty that I am. Some survive such a close encounter and become friends. Some survive the friendship and get invited into the inner sanctum where a fluffy Mogwai resides. It is a gentle soul… just be careful.