Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Being Weird

Every once in a while I'm reminded that I have a weird brain.  I've had a couple of reminders recently.

A group of young adults who'd just gone through a survival course were on their last leg where they had to survive on their own without adult supervision.  The party was attacked by a bear.  Four were seriously injured, including one person who had a punctured lung and bite marks in his skull.  The other six managed to escape without injury.  They turned on their emergency beacon at 9:30pm, and were picked up about 3am.  They used their recent skills to perform life-saving first aid, including dealing with the punctured lung.  No one died.  My first thought was, wow, that's an amazing survival school--they really taught them some serious skills!  I think most people will react with how irresponsible the instructors were to leave them alone out there without proper protection.  I expect the school will be sued and will fold as a result.  sigh

Today I had one of those moments when I couldn't wait until the end of my shift, and as often happens when I wish the time would fly by, I reminded myself that I wouldn't want to rush through the last hour of my life.  If anything, I would hope that the hour went by long and slow and among loved friends and family so that I could be with them and hold them until the hour stretched into infinite.  So why the hell would I want to rush this hour?  I made the most of it.  Yes, I was at work, but we have great customers and a great team and I tried to enjoy my time at work as much as I could before I clocked out.  On my way out the door, I wished my coworkers a good night, and that I looked forward to seeing them on Friday.

I don't mind being weird.  And I bet there are other weirdos out there just like me, so maybe I'm not all that weird.  I wonder how many offbeat ideas are out there that people never voice, because they're afraid that everyone will think they're stupid or morbid or naive ...?

5 comments:

Tony Alderman said...

I love reading your blog, Kami — you often leave me in a reflective mood

Josh Kruschke said...

Maybe your mind is the normal one and it's everyone else minds that are the ones that our off?

From what I know of the incident it was part of the course to be left on theirown (to build confidence in their skills) and the parents where aware of this. Most of the parents that have talk about the incident to the media have just shown how proud they are of the kids and have not blamed the school.

A positive attitude is a winning attitude, and that was a great example of the Bushido concept of always keeping death in mind.

:-)
Josh

Anonymous said...

Hi Kami!

If you were being weird, then Jesus and Gandhi were being weird. And that just isn't so.

I'm weird, and proud of it! Weird and wonderful.

Be brave, Kami and don't play to the safe crowd. They are secretly jealous of you and me. Reality TV is their highest sense of art.

You've heard it before: What would Jesus [Gandhi or whomever you honor]do?

They'd do what you did!

The Moody Minstrel said...

I agree with what they said. I think you're normal and everyone else has untightened screws.

If you like it, make the most of it!

Kami said...

I don't just like the way I am, I love it!

I hope everyone at least likes who and what they are, even if they don't love all aspects of themselves. It would be so sad and destructive to hate yourself and not be able to change--or worse, be able to change but either not doing it or not having it occur to you that you could be different.

Steven Barnes is doing some remarkable work in the area of changing and growing--check him out if this kind of stuff interests you.