“This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.” — David Lynch

Last week, a friend of mine said that she was trying to go about her usual daily business and found that she was just feeling weird, like a total weirdo. I said, join the club. Other loved ones have told me that they wonder if they’re losing their minds. Me too, I replied.

These are disorienting times.

“Disorienting” seems almost a mealy-mouthed description, but I’m trying to strike a workable balance between outright panic and dismal complacency. And I think most of us — whether you fear that this is the end of the world, or you believe we’re experiencing a positive course-correction, or you’re simply trying to make it through the day with a minimum of upset — can agree that things are chaotic and unsettling. It’s hard to get one’s bearings when we’re feeling upside-down, confused, crazy, and just plain weird.

My first response is: well, what’s passing for “normal” these days looks pretty mean and selfish and shitty, so we should thank heavens for all the ways we feel weird in it. Thank god I’m a weirdo! I wouldn’t be otherwise.

The world has always needed weirdos to push the envelope, to color outside the lines, challenging the status quo and expanding our ideas of what’s possible for all of us. Artists and innovators, mystics and justice pioneers. People engrossed in obscure specializations that almost nobody else “gets.” Folks who march unapologetically to the beat of their own drum.

Part of me identifies strongly with the old Groucho Marx quip, “I don’t want to be a part of any club that would have me as a member.” At the same time, though, I do believe in belonging. I am deeply committed to the idea that we belong to each other — all of us, no exceptions.

So while I am okay with (even proud of) some of the ways in which I feel like an outsider, a weirdo, I’m not entirely sure how to reconcile that with my desire to belong.  My soulful desire for belonging with my fellow Americans, with the whole human race, with Life Itself.

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“Normal” on its own kind of sucks. It knee-caps creativity with the drag of restriction and repression. Standards and Norms tend to treat difference as deficiency. And since we are all different — maybe obviously, maybe secretly, but in any case all weird in our own ways — too much emphasis on “normal” leaves everyone feeling sad, scared, and alone. If we think our belonging depends upon fitting into a narrow definition of normality, then we’ve all already blown it simply by being ourselves.

I don’t think this means chucking the entire concept of normal, though.  Jeez Louise, I would love a little more normalcy in some important areas right now — a respect for experience and expertise, an attempt to remember history with at least a little accuracy, a functioning representational government…

At its best, an awareness of normality is our collective memory and the ground of all future being. It reminds us of everything we’ve learned and accomplished — both what worked and what didn’t. And, together, as we create what comes next, it can help to keep some of our most extreme impulses in check. “Normal” includes our social contracts and expectations, our basic values, our ideas of decency. Even if we see ourselves on the edge of a lot of that, pushing the envelope however we do, we still have an interest in preserving shared reality. Very few of us will thrive if it all goes completely off the rails.

I propose that belonging is the baseline, that belonging has always been a given.  We belong.   Normal is weird and weird is normal.

So when we encounter that which doesn’t feel like it belongs, anything that feels abnormal — either as others or within ourselves — our work is to expand. Our growth is in making room, making our “normal” bigger. We build and strengthen our communities and institutions not by exclusion but by including more and more of us.

The only caveat I would like to offer is that we do our best to remain True. I mean, weird is expansive and great unless it’s a lie. We’re here to be our authentic, genuine, honest selves. Truly weird. Because while reality does leave a lot to the imagination, as John Lennon said — still, it behooves us to be as honest as we can, and as factual as we know.

I may be a little messy, discombobulated, and weird this week. I keep telling myself, join the club. This Sunday, February 9, at 10am, with the divine Patty Stephens. XO, Drew

©2025 Drew Groves