Friday, 25 January 2013

A Select Club.

It’s been a day of sourness today, but at least something finally came into focus. It’s been sharpening for some years and I’ve made several references to it on this blog. Now it’s clear as a bell:

I don’t function at all well in close proximity to normal people.

Normal people rattle me. I find their concerns and preoccupations largely tedious, and they find mine mostly incomprehensible. At best, it means I have to make the effort to shift towards them if there’s to be any interaction. At worst, it means that when they push my button and provoke seething rage, low depression, or high anxiety, I have to put up with it. There’s no point in trying to explain; they just don’t get it. Why would they? They’re normal; I’m not. And I can find many examples of that going back to at least age twelve. It included my parents and the rest of my family even at that age.

I intend neither self-aggrandisement nor self-debasement in saying this. Neither do I imply any criticism of normal people. It’s just a fact of life. So how do I define normal, you might ask. Normal is the set of social, intellectual and spiritual parameters within which 90% of people function.

So, to all those abnormal people out there: hello. Nice to make your acquaintance. We’ll never meet, but at least we can pretend to be part of a select club – the 10% Club, where unlike but compatible minds meet.

*  *  *

I haven’t posted any music for a while, have I? The following is rather nice if you’re into gentle melancholy. The accompanying video doesn’t match the title at all, but at least most of the images are conducive to the music. It needs to be watched full screen.


8 comments:

andrea kiss said...

I can totally relate to you on this, Mr Beazley. My own mother used to sometimes say to me, "you're such a strange girl... why don't you try to be more like so and so..." Didn't really bother me much, really, not in a hurt my feelings sort of way. But i've often got tired of being told that i'm odd, or hearing about someone else saying it to someone else. It has made me feel bad, at times. The worst is, "you're wierd, but in a cool way." My strangeness really isn't that strange, i don't think, and mostly manifests itself, at first anyway, as a bit of social awkwardness.

Perhaps we're really aliens in human people bodies.

andrea kiss said...

Not saying that you're strange... that's just the word that came out while typing the above about myself.

Anonymous said...

I've been told, "You have to learn to follow the crowd." Yeah, right.

JJ said...

Andrea: If you call me strange, I'll happily agree. If a normal person calls me strange, I'll laugh at them. How's that?

Sara: I'm sure that following the crowd is a recipe for contentment, but only if you're made that way. If you're not, it becomes an intolerable pressure and makes you feel false. At least, that's how I've found it works.

The problem with this is that it tends to lead you towards isolation. That you can get used to. The bigger problem arises when, having got used to it, your world is 'polluted' (my term, and a subjective one, I know) by normal people encroaching intolerably on your space - and there's nothing you can do about it. Finding 'unpolluted' space in a modern, crowded country like Britain is almost impossible unless you're rich.

Anonymous said...

There is a strange man in the shire,
Whom we in the States all admire,
He walks to and fro,
And doesn't like snow,
And never throws books on the fire.


MM

JJ said...

A poem? For me? Thank you, MM. Nobody has ever written me a poem before.

Anonymous said...

You're welcome! And now I'll have to come up with another one using your new poetic format.

MM

JJ said...

Two in one lifetime? I might wither!