If we ever meet, you might notice my hand slip down the back of my trousers to caress my buttocks.”
So begins Martin Howard in his Guardian piece on Eccentricity, simultaneously nailing his own colors to that mast. The received wisdom is that eccentrics are borderline nuts, but psychiatrist David Weeks found them to be healthier and less depressed than the average person, probably because they “don’t repress their inner nature in the struggle to conform” and so have less stress, better immune systems, and greater happiness. He noted that, in Howard’s paraphrase, “eccentrics tend to be optimistic people with a highly developed, mischievous sense of humour, childlike curiosity and a drive to make the world a better place.”
Only 1 in 5,000-10,000 is a full blown eccentric, but many more of us have eccentric tendencies that become more pronounced with age. Here’s Weeks’ checklist of identifying traits. You are probably eccentric if you have:
- a non-conforming attitude
- creativity
- curiosity
- idealism
- an obsession with a hobby or hobbies
As to the last, blogging definitely counts.
--Julian
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