Weird? Who’s weird?

Not me, for sure! Most would say!

We see so many strange things going on while riding public transportation that, sometimes, one scratches his/her head.
My friend told me, “You have no idea what I’ve seen while riding the MBTA! People squeezing themselves into a car that everybody can see that it is more than full; Others carrying large instruments during rush hours; the MBTA employee who doesn’t give a damn about riders’ problem; the drivers who get on their phones or other distractions and cause accidents; others set up banquet with smelly food; etc. etc.” He went on and on with the list, and, I had to admit, it is weird! People sometimes don’t use their common sense. But what I found even weirder was our different ways of seeing weird.

We may not say it, but we usually feel in all our righteousness, thinking that we know what to do most of the time, that we believe our actions are the most reasonable ones possible. Therefore, we don’t act weird. We are just not perfect. And if by any chance we do something that may be questionable, we have the most plausible explanation for it (hey, I didn’t call it excuse. You did!). But that’s it! We are just like that! We are not weird. The others yes, they do act weird. And don’t be fooled by those who admit beforehand that they are weird. That can be just a mechanism of defense that is offered in advance to protect themselves from further scrutiny, although we know that some people give up on themselves, which is sad.  But the truth is that we are quick on holding our assumed high positions while pointing finger at others. Yeah! They act weird, and they are weird too. And that’s the beauty of it.

Imagine for a second that you are in someone else’s body, and you are looking around using their eyes. You think using their mind and you only know what they know. And because you can only judge what you are seeing based on what that person knows, you have to feel right on your judgements of what you are seeing. Of course you do! You probably see some weird stuff going on around you too. You love some things, you despise others, and so on. Yet, these judgements can be completely different from what you would make if you were in your own body using your own mind. It is as if we use some unique goggles that are activated by what has been previously recorded in our minds. We look at stuff, it triggers some related data in our mind, … and boom, we give it a meaning that, among many other things, can be weird. Nonetheless, someone else could’ve seen it completely natural.

“Uh! Wait?” you could ask. “But then who is weird?” Well, …you figure that out!  

But let’s stretch it a bit further. Consider that you were threatened yesterday at your work which is your only source of income. It affected

you badly that you were only able to sleep for a few hours towards morning. Now you are late. Would you squeeze yourself into that train? I would! Or perhaps your dream is to become a musician, and finally you got the opportunity for that audition, but you don’t have a car. Would you bring that tuba along on train? I would say, hell yeah! Now check this out! Isn’t it weird that someone is trying to make weird look not weird? You bet! It is weird.

It’s all on us baby! And because there are lots of us, each one seeing weird on his/her own way, we are in for a lot of weird things. Just have fun with it. So, if you see something weird, say something weird, and let each one be the judge.