Hi Pogue,

So here I am and I’m still thinking about ‘weird’, your ‘weird’, my ‘weird’ and looking around and about for other people who have found their’s together with the determination and freedom to give it expression.

To that end I spotted an account in a book I’m currently reading, A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway’s memoirs of his time in Paris as a young aspiring writer. Firstly, it was a really exciting time with Paris being a hub of creativity. On an almost daily basis Hemingway would meet in cafes with James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis and many other literary greats, then in the making. But I was reading today about his encounters with Scott Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby guy. I knew little about Fitzgerald until reading this and would now have to conclude that, at best, he was eccentric and at worst a troubled man. But in the midst of the turmoil that was his life he was writing some, of what would become, the world’s great literature.

Indeed there is a long list of men and women, that would leave the world a legacy of great literature, poetry, art and thought, who could be grouped with Fitzgerald in the eccentric/troubled category. And here I am wondering if embracing our ‘weird’, that unique thing or things that will set us free from a mundane and average life, may also set free other aspects of our being. Maybe freedom at this level is not for the faint hearted and given wings, unlike Icarus, we should heed the warning not to fly to close to the sun. Being free is not the same as being given licence to live recklessly and without reference to your own wellbeing. Indeed, also the well being of others who we may cross paths with.

Having spent weeks encouraging you to embrace your ‘weird’ I now find myself saying: “Do so with care”. Like anything new that is given to you take time to learn how it works, but do learn and do use it. Don’t waste a gift of this magnitude. I think I ought to tell you to be looking in two directions. Firstly forward to the great possibilities that you will realise are now achievable and then, all around to check how you are faring in the journey, in fact, I would say: “Be mindful”. Be in the moment, be present, feel your emotions, know how your mind is coping and what you’re thinking. Find those you trust to bounce your thoughts and experience off of. Those who understand what is going on and are free thinking.

Yes there are many who have gone down this path and achieved great things but at the cost of their own health, mental, emotional and relational. The more I read of them the more I find a common theme of persons who have completely thrown themselves into creativity at the sacrifice of all else. But there are also many who create and manage to retain balance in their lives. Oh, they still pull apart from the average life and are seen as different as time goes on, will bear any consequences that being different brings but that will be seen as small cost.

So, if you are looking for or have found your ‘weird’ I would encourage you to follow it so you will experience fulfilment in your life and a freedom many will never know. But do it mindfully, and if that means practicing mindfulness at the same time, so much the better. Climb to great heights but do it with balance, grace and wellbeing.

Yours, practicing some low level stuff,

Wic.