Staying Power #147: "Blessed Are the Weird"

(For they are wondrous.)

This graphic is on one of my favorite t-shirts. A friend gave me the shirt years ago. I’m gonna wear it till it turns into a holey rag. That’s how much I love its message.

The text is clearly traceable to Jacob Nordby, who, back in 2016, wrote this in his “manifesto for creatives”:

Blessed are the weird people: poets, misfits, writers, mystics, painters, troubadours: for they teach us to see the world through different eyes. (Blessed are the Weird: A Manifesto for Creatives, Manifesto Publishing House, 2016)

Frankly, much as I like my t-shirt’s text, I like Nordby’s wording better. For instance, “teach us to see” is so much better than “force us to see.” I’d like us to be done with force. How about you?

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I count you, along with myself, as one of the “weird people.” You and I understand the power of creativity.

But, in contrast to what my t-shirt says, we “weird people” are not “outsiders.” Not at all. We’re very much insiders. We’re as inside as you can get. We live at the very heart of things.

We “weird people” also understand that the “inside” doesn’t really have an “outside.” Everything and everyone in the world belongs to the world.

Like it or not, we’re all smack-dab in the middle of this life together. We’re all making this life together.

That makes all of us creatives.

That makes all of us weird.

And since we’re all weird, then none of us are actually weird.

We’re just looking for imaginative ways to live out who we really are: wondrous.

So maybe we should design a different t-shirt. How about this one?

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The Gentle Nudge

Join other Rafters this week . . .

• THURSDAY: Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)

• Our August “Show & Share” is running at this link. Add your creative work to the thread!

View the full Raft calendar.

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