The Beauty of Being Weird | Teen Ink

The Beauty of Being Weird

September 28, 2011
By TheWordSmith SILVER, Placerville, California
TheWordSmith SILVER, Placerville, California
5 articles 0 photos 51 comments

My friend stared at my hand with an inquisitive expression. “Why do you have only one nail painted black?”

I smiled. I had been waiting for this question all day. “Well, it is a symbol of the internal struggle between light - represented by the unblemished nails - and dark, represented by the singular black nail.”
My friend raised an eyebrow.

I laughed. “Actually, there’s no real reason. I just felt like it.”
Just because I felt like it. I do a lot of things just because I feel like it. Like running on the driveway, blanketed with a thick layer of pure white snow, without any shoes on. Like sitting amongst a cluster of bushes, enjoying the silence of nature and being hidden from the world. Like eating pizza for breakfast, or taking ridiculous pictures of myself (and never posting them on Facebook, of course!), or pouring bottled water down both my parched throat and my red, warm face. Like wearing mismatched socks in obnoxiously bright colors.
Yes, it’s different. Yes, it’s unique. But most of all - it’s weird. Ha! There, I said it. A word that is prohibited from high school life, only spoken in a whisper about the most nerdy, ugly, and bizarre people on campus. The thing is, though, once you realize how important, how inspiring, and how beautiful the word “weird” is, you’ll love it as much as I have grown to.
Imagine this: a perfect person. And by perfect, I mean literally perfect. She (or he) always wears the coolest clothes. She/he aces every class, no matter how difficult. She/he is talented at every sport, activity, or hobby you can imagine. She/he never says the wrong thing. Basically, this perfect person has no flaws. Great, right? Wrong.
Because this person always wears the coolest clothes, they are not creative because they can’t think outside the box and design a completely unique style that defines who they are. Because this person gets a perfect grade on every single homework assignment, they never learn from their mistakes (because there are no mistakes to learn from!), and the joy of discovering something new is absent from their lives. Because this person has no flaws, this person is boring.
Our quirks, our unique traits, our weirdness makes us who we are. Each of us is completely individual, totally different from the person next to you, and the person next to him, and the person next to her.
If we weren’t weird, we’d be boring.
If a person calls me weird (and believe me, I hear it a lot - mostly from my equally weird friends and family), I don’t cringe and come home from school that day crying, wondering what I did wrong to deserve such an insult.
Instead, I smile, and say, “Thank you. So are you.”

The author's comments:
Being weird is beautiful!? Yeah, I know... weird, right?

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This article has 8 comments.


on Apr. 6 2012 at 7:53 am
wordbeater SILVER, Sharpsburg, Georgia
6 articles 0 photos 26 comments

Favorite Quote:
Truth is beauty and beauty truth, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

Keats

Loved this!

on Dec. 20 2011 at 7:02 pm
Tongue_Blep PLATINUM, ????, Ohio
40 articles 1 photo 769 comments
this was great! I can be weird a little too! But who cares! Everyone can be weird sometime! And i hate those people think that thet are perfect, its just kind of annoying! :)(:

on Oct. 19 2011 at 6:29 pm
TheWordSmith SILVER, Placerville, California
5 articles 0 photos 51 comments
Exactly, so what!? :)

on Oct. 19 2011 at 6:28 pm
TheWordSmith SILVER, Placerville, California
5 articles 0 photos 51 comments
why thanks :)

on Oct. 19 2011 at 10:21 am
I agree so much :) I love being weird. Loved the concept of one black fingernail.

Choco said...
on Oct. 19 2011 at 10:16 am
Finally some said it! Im wiered also! I were shots suspenders with stocking and a fethered headband to school! everyone tell me a either look so cool or cute, or i look wiered or stupid! So what!

on Oct. 8 2011 at 1:10 pm
TheWordSmith SILVER, Placerville, California
5 articles 0 photos 51 comments
Thank you so much! It's encouraging to hear that people can relate to what I write! :) I agree about "perfect" girls - I think it's sad when anyone tries to be perfect, because they can never be, and constantly have to worry about keeping up their image. To heck with perfection, hooray for weirdness! =)

on Oct. 8 2011 at 9:22 am
DifferentTeen PLATINUM, Seaford, Delaware
32 articles 2 photos 329 comments

Favorite Quote:
"There’s no such thing as true love, just spurts of insanity—falling over and over again, thinking that won’t happen to me"

Gahh! I love this article, and I can relate so much. My friends call me weird and I think its great. Or when they call me crazy, I'm just like "I know." with a smile. Being crazy and weird is fun, people can't predict what you're going to do next, and I HATE being predictable. And those girls that are fake? They need to stop pretending because I know when they go home they are not perfect, they are themselves. So I say, why not just be that way all the time? So this article is basically my life. Thank you for writing this, it was amazing!