"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric." - Bertrand Russell

I think back to my youth (not that I feel I have left my youth...but rather, my younger days) and how "odd" or "eccentric" I thought I was. The strange thoughts I had. The strange ideas. And how I hated myself for being "different". Like there was some kind of "sameness" OUT THERE that I had failed to grow-up into...conform to. Now I am glad for all my differences and almost regret much of the "sameness" that I have assimilated. My own urges to "fit in" and to "belong" have mellowed and shaped and smoothed many of my rougher edges. And, although those rought edges needed some smoothing, they were also a part of who I was/am. My uniqueness. My vision. My art. My being. Now that I am older...and one hopes: wiser - I long to return to that former, rougher, unrefined self. Those raw, sharp edges gave me something. A sense of identity. I remember an early collection of poems I wrote: ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN (published early 1980s) and how trite and cliched they were...but at the same time, they were honest, early reflections from my particular point-of-view. The compelling urge to conform itself, must be fought and stayed! To really appreciate who were are...all of our ackwardness, geekiness, strangeness...this is the blessing of who we each are. I think too of all the other 'odd-balls' I remember from school. Were they special, gifted, odd? Yes...but in the pejorative way that was suggested then? Perhaps...but then again, as Bertrand Russell suggests, maybe these were future geniuses. I recently watched most of THE SOLOIST with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx -- a story about a violinist/cellist who becomes increasingly taken over by his schizophrenia. He survives on the edges of life. Living on the street and performing under freeway overpasses. Downey Jr.'s character - a reporter for the Los Angeles Times - trys to "save" him and normalize him. But I remember one of the counsellors he brings him to suggests that Foxx's character and all the others under his care have had enough drugs, therapy and labels. There is an inherent suggestion that their reality is real and right and appropriate for them...and that the problem is "us" - society - for rejecting them and estranging them to the streets and fringes. What an interesting concept. How much have we disposed ourselves. What is a mid-life crisis, but a momentary wake-up call to re-assess our lives. What happened to us? To our lives? Our potential? Our youth? What is YOUTH anyway? Is it only "age" or is a state of being? Of being "new," "open," willing to examine, question and postulate new, strange and eccentric ideas? I think it is as much the latter as the former, it's just the "young" have not had all their rough edges and eccentricities smoothed out and suppressed. So here is to YOUTH, to ECCENTRICITY and to being ALIVE AND OPEN MINDED...