I have a weird set of hobbies and what I enjoy doing.
The real question is trying to understand what is wacky, and where I lie on that spectrum. The tricky part about being wacky, is that when you're on the inside, when you're part of your wacky group, you're not the wacky one, you're just part of the crowd.
I glowstick, I juggle, I do all sorts of weird, wacky, interesting, crazy things. The only problem with it, is that no matter what is going on, no matter where I stand, as long as I'm in the group of people that I'm with that are part of the community of wackiness, you don't see it, and that's where I'm at.
I'm only partially aware that what I do is wacky, and that's never a good sign. It's sort of like a crazy person realizing, after being institutionalized for a decade or two, that something about them isn't quite right. They only see the tip of the iceberg and they can even see that something isn't normal, but to everyone else they're the craziest person that they know who is hopped up on meds all the time. Knowing that you're wacky, and that there's something different about you isn't a good thing, because chances are if you're just starting to realize that what you're doing is weird and wacky, everyone else has already been in on that information for a long time and they have just kept the secret to themselves.
The tricky part as I'm starting to figure out my quirks and eccentricities, is trying to see if they're 'normal'. Is it normal to stay up late at night doing nothing more than writing about fake people and places? Is it normal to stay up just as late setting up a D&D campaign? Is it weird or wacky to run late nights painting small miniature armies. . . that you'll most likely never actually use in a real game? Where do you draw the line?
For those who are outside the spectrum of wacky, you can easily answer the questions. Of course you're weird if you spend 12 hours a day swimming. Of course you're wacky if you make jokes about how ATB is lacking ATP in most of their music. It's evident if you're outside of the groups of what is wacky, and what isn't, but once you're on the inside and surrounded by the people that love the same things that you love, that think the same way you think, things that were once wacky and weird, turn into things that are fun and exciting.
To everyone else, coming up with new aura spells and attributes for a D&D character that has been customized and stolen from a MOBA just for the off chance that my PC's run into him and are able to use the ability is wacky. For people in my D&D group, it's interesting and they like it .To people outside of the group, sitting up late at night staring at a screen and consistently typing because you just can't stop writing about a character because it's almost like trying to put down a good book and you keep telling yourself 'just one more page before I sleep' is weird. To writers, that's a Thursday.
The weirdest part about self identifying wacky is that when you're in groups you see what is normal. Even in wacky groups there is the 'normal' wacky, and then there's those people off to the side that are wacky, even by the wacky group's standards. You might enjoy juggling, but there's always that one person in the group that insists on juggling an audience member's shoe, a bowling ball, and a bowler hat at the same time. You might enjoy (insert hobby, wacky idea, or anything else here) but there's always that one person that goes one step further into the realm of wacky and it doesn't fit.
Fire spinning was the key for this in my life. Before I spun fire, I always said, "Only crazy people spin fire." It was a mantra. I said it all the time when people asked me if I had spun fire. No, of course I didn't spin fire, only weird, wacky, hippy people spin fire. I could never spin fire. That's not my crowd, that isn't normal, that isn't for me. But then I spun fire. I spun fire, and then spinning fire went from something weird and wacky to something totally normal, but the really crazy people were ones that tried to do wraps with open flames, or breathed fire, or even those people that were stupid enough to try to play with fire without proper precautions. No matter how deep I got into the group of fire performance, no matter where I was in it, there were always people that were/are wackier and crazier, so that means that I wasn't wacky.
I'm not wacky for doing miniture wargaming, because I don't air-brush, I don't play the game as hard as others, and I don't spend THAT much money on it. I don't have multiple armies that are unpainted, I only have one unpainted army. (A month ago, it was only weird, wacky people that had unpainted, unassembled armies just sitting around, that had multiple projects going at the same time, but then I got Mannfred and Nagash at the same time. . . then I invested in the army in Idaho, and that became normal and people that have multiple armies are the weird, wacky ones)
I'm not wacky for playing video games. At least I'm not one of those people that spend (insert number higher than what I play on a weekly basis) hours a week playing video games. As long as that number is higher than mine, it doesn't matter. For example, World of Warcraft players are wacky. They spend WAY too much time and effort on it. I would never do that on WoW. . . even though I did that on RO, but that's different. Totally different because on RO that was normal. I wasn't wacky. On RO, the wacky people were those that had MVP timers and woke up in the middle of the night to try to get a .03% chance of a monster drop from a boss that spawned every four to six hours.
When you're on the inside, wacky is anyone that is 'worse' than you, the really tricky thing is trying to see just where you have wacky in your own life because you have to figure out what is 'normal'. If you don't have what's 'normal' you can't figure out if you're wacky, or rather, just how wacky you might be. Let's be honest, we'll never know how wacky we are in our own lives, because no one is normal. No one is free from at least a little bit of wacky.
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