In high school, I had the grand idea to shave my head into a mohawk.
My friends and I turned this idea into an afternoon activity, busting into the local Great Clips to get the party started.
This was not a punk kid's mohawk. I had just quit the football team. I'd usually wear colorful running shoes, basketball shorts and a sports-themed t-shirt to school.
This was Travis Barker if he was an energetic virgin who hadn't yet smoked weed, had no tattoos, and his favorite thing besides drumming was American college football.
What happened next was straight out of a movie.
New mohawk on my head, packed full of gel and spiked to the moon, I saw my mother outside walking past the window of the shop.
What are the odds?
I bolted out the door and yelled, "Hey Mom!"
She was half mortified, half nervous laughter. She pulled cash out of her purse, and begged the hairdresser to lop off the new addition to my noggin. The mohawk escaped Mom's cancel culture. It didn't last long, maybe a month or so after that, but the mohawk was a fun game to play.
I was a drummer in a short-lived high school band called The Really Hot Naked Guys. We played a few house parties. I'd play shirtless and wear a vintage football helmet, the sports-loving Travis Barker wannabe - blink-182 soaked into every aspect of our teenage lives. Is this making sense now?
On some days I was asked to leave the classroom, because I was too focused on the next funny thing to say. I was a disruption, and I loved the attention. My teachers liked me, but they needed to purge me from time-to-time for their own sanity. Or, they'd humor me, like when my algebra teacher brought balloons to class to see how many we could pop on the mohawk.
Our classmates voted me and two of my best friends as finalists for the "wittiest" in our grade. I was surrounded by hilarious weirdos, and still am today, thank God.
The people in my life who know me best might be surprised to hear that I struggled with embracing my own weirdness. For most of my life, this was not an issue. I was very much confidently Logan, mohawk or no hawk.
Two years ago, after a difficult breakup, I nearly lost that life-long connection of accepting my own originality. I questioned all of my qualities, habits, goals, values and interests. I thought I was too weird to be loved, a natural result of being dumped.
That didn't last too long, as I was able to focus on picking myself up, brushing off the dirt and restarting my life. A bit dramatic, huh? But it's true. The last few years have been my hardest years, my best years, and I credit myself for doing the work that got me here.
I started writing again in 2023. I was dying to share my words, but I was hesitant - the fear of showing off my inner mohawk.
"You have something to offer the world in your unique experience and your creativity that no one else has to offer in exactly that way. Which means that if you don’t - if you allow status games or social norms or internal fears to curb your weirdness - the universe will be fundamentally less complex and beautiful."
This quote from Chris Williamson floored me. It might sound obvious to you, and it instantly became obvious to me then too.
I'd struggled because I had been battling my own nature, often comparing myself to others. I had placed my perception of myself into the hands of other people to determine that for me. A real power comes from understanding that my own self-worth comes from within me, not from others. I learned this lesson at 30 years old.
I will have a relationship with my brain my entire life, so might as well make it a great one. The best way to do that is to fully lean into what's true to myself, no matter how weird my choices may be.
All of us have ordinary qualities. We also have extraordinary qualities. A problem exists in how we might have the tendency to suppress the extraordinary in favor of the ordinary - because we are afraid of being judged as strange and weird.
It's weird to write an essay every day. I could watch Netflix instead.
It's easier to fit in than to stand out.
What is the definition of normal?
Conforming to a standard. Expected, usual, typical, average.
Normal is average.
Is every choice in your life your choice? Or do you make some choices because that's what's expected of you from friends, family, your inner circle, your coworkers?
Life requires compromises, sure. But some people may spend a decade or more living a life they didn't choose.
Owning an iPhone is so normalized now, that if you prefer any other option you're shamed for not joining the blue-text club. A green-text person is too weird to be accepted by our society. I'm trying really hard to come up with a more stupid example of the status-quo.
Don't be like anyone else.
Be you, in any form that might exist.
Blue texts, green texts, purple texts, no texts.
The world wants this, and requires this from you.
Normals exist in the world created by weirdos.
Weirdos change the world.
The only way to be weird is to be honest.
If you hide your weirdness, you lie to yourself.
If you lie, weirdness hides.
And yes, my texts are green.
My photo: Weird photos of me with donuts, a gift from friends & family on my 30th birthday.