Weird kids get laughed at. Especially the ones who care the most.
The ones with obsessions. The ones with an unrelenting, singular focus on some wild dream or idea that they prioritise over fitting in.
Right now, you're either imagining the weirdest kid in your class or reliving vivid flashbacks of having your head dunked in a toilet.
If it's the latter, I'm sorry.
As a teen, I had the strange blessing of recovering from the plague of childhood asthma and becoming strong and mildly athletic.
I played football, and then basketball. I was even in an Adidas basketball advert. Twice. Okay, I was just a background extra, but the cash was good, and no one can take it away from me.
The joke is that throughout school I'd occasionally disappear at lunchtime, and nobody had any idea where I was. I was in the library living my second life among fellow nerds, writing Lord of the Rings fan fiction and drawing anime characters.
And yes, I realise I'm basically admitting I lived the plot of High School Musical. But I wasn't the only one.
When cornballs become kings
Michael B. Jordan got bullied for carrying his headshots to school. Decades later he was interviewed on the red carpet by a girl from his school who used to bully him.
Kids used to call him corny and laugh at his name being the same as basketball legend Michael Jordan. Now he's a legend in his own right, and they have to call him actor, director, and Hollywood mogul.
At college, Jeff Bezos was the head of the Space Society. What a cornball.
He didn't become an astronaut, he became a banker. But then he built a company - an online bookstore. Another cornball move. Until it surpassed everybody's wildest expectations - except Jeff's. And then he built a spaceship company and took himself to space.
He did everything he said he was going to, and nobody believed it until it was inevitable.
Seeds of greatness
Greatness is deviance.
It requires hitting a target nobody can see.
Deviance is socially discouraged.
Embrace the cringe. Hold on to your obsession. Let them laugh, then let them watch.
P.s. this is one of my favourite videos. It's Timothée Chalamet being maximum cringe at a high school talent show. Now he's an ethereal heartthrob.
