Eccentricity

I know a man who will not kill a fly.  If one is bothering him, he will do his best to shoo it out an open doorway, but if he finds that somewhere between difficult and impossible he will allow the disturbance it presents.  This same man, who is 62 years of age, has never learned to drive an automobile.  He rides a bicycle wherever he travels in summer, while he walks in winter.  No, he is not Amish, he is eccentric.  He never married, but is not gay.  I don’t know if that is a conscious decision, or merely he never found what he never searched for.  Being a confirmed bachelor seems not to bother him in the least.  He loves animals, owning several cats and dogs at any given time throughout the years that I have known him, which amounts to more than forty.  That is years, cats, and dogs.

I know a woman who will not kill a fly, merely paying as little attention to one as she can.  She has several cats and a dog, but unlike the man above, she also has a spouse.  They have been happily married for at least thirty years, and seem not to have suffered any dire consequences from that union.  She drives a car, and in fact is the main bread winner for the family as the husband lacks the fortitude to work for a living.  She has dutifully driven to work for all of the years they have been married while he has worked only sporadically, and hardly ever for anyone else.  She believes in a bit of an odd religion, while her husband believes in none.  When they were younger they each lived in a hippy commune.

All three of the above people are college educated with bachelor degrees from well-known institutions.  The first gentleman is graduated from a highly regarded art program.  The lady was a major in language and has traveled to Europe and Australia while studying same.  She tends to worry too much, about such things as the great flu pandemic, and other such world problems that nobody cares about except the news reporters trying to drum up something on a quiet day.

Eccentric people are not crazy, they are sometimes a perfect example of those who “march to a different drum” as paraphrased from Thoreau.  Their thinking is not wrong, merely different in many respects from the norm.  I find these people exhilarating to be around as I never know what they will say next.  Often it is off-the-wall, but makes for an unusual conversation that you are very likely to learn something from if you pay attention.  The next time you hear someone say something a trifle unusual, instead of looking askance and leaving, invite them to a cup of coffee and listen a little more.  You’ll be glad you did.