Proud to be…
I have always found it strange when friends — especially converts — emphasise that they are “independent”, although of course I understand what they’re saying… that Islam is their choice, that they didn’t embrace it because of someone else or because someone made them. But it strikes me as strange because when I look at my own life I find myself absolutely dependent. To get to work I am dependent on so many things, as the bad weather earlier in the year and my car’s recent brush with death proved: good roads, affordable fuel, to name but two. To sustain myself I am dependent on farmers, truck drivers, shop keepers, rainfall, my income and so on. And of course, above all I am dependent on my Lord. But as for the sentiment of self-definition, recently I have found myself carrying this thought: I’m fiercely eccentric. There was a time when I hated being rather an odd-ball, but today I think I could even say, “I’m proud to be eccentric.” But maybe that’s just a self-defence mechanism.
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Perhaps it’s among your gifts. Sometimes being different is Allah’s way of weeding out those who will not be of benefit to you. Perhaps your odd ways may actually help another person gain a different and more important perspective.
It could be a defense mechanism, but that’s not really a bad thing is it? I know that I’m a weirdo for a reason. I hope it’s a good reason. It has proven to be good thus far.
I hope I don’t offend you by insinuating that you’re a weirdo like me. I’m proud of it as well.
— noted by Dynamite Soul 10:31 am on 15th July, 2009 .
I fight a feeling of inadequacy — the feeling of loneliness sometimes, but I have found that I usually choose solitude over company because of a period in my life I call “the aparthied” — six bad years, at the end of the third I started writing. I suddenly stopped talking to people because of general distrust. So the eccentricity — solitary quirks cultivated during forced isolation — rose as a mechanism but now I am stuck with it. But it is redeemed by the fact that the critical search for meaning led me to God. On the plus side, I think the eccentrics are gifted to see things from new and other perspective. So while I don’t yet share your confidence, it’s indeed worth it.
— noted by aiman 2:32 pm on 16th July, 2009 .