Quirky People: Celebrating Unique Personalities
So when you read the title, did your mind jump to images of your own idiosyncrasies or were you flooded with thoughts about the quirky people around you? Either way, I would like you to take a peek at some of the amazing and wonderful qualities of quirky folks. For me, the title “Quirky People” calls to mind those who are creative, conceptual thinkers, and inventive. How many of us know of incredibly creative people who contribute to the wonder of our lives with beautiful paintings or architecture? Or how about the businessperson who can dream up, design, and develop an amazing new approach, product, or service, yet is awkward socially and tells goofy jokes? Do creative and out-of-the-box thinkers tend to be quirky?
Technology erupts with something new several times a day. It takes a special kind of intelligence to imagine technological solutions and then fabricate them. One computer wizard told his work group (I was there consulting the company) that an ideal weekend off would be to camp out in the computer room of a major company, comforted after sunset by the hums and clicks of the main frames. Everyone laughed. Is he quirky?
My six-top-center-marque-of-my-smile dental crowns were hand painted by a man using photographs to coordinate with my complexion. But I learned his lab had to build him a separate room because he couldn’t get along with others. His services are sought out from across the US and Europe. Is he quirky?
While we can acknowledge the contributions made by those who are quirky, the other side of the label includes connotations such as eccentric, odd, even outlandish or unorthodox. Add strange, bizarre, peculiar, and just plain weird. The term often carries a pejorative tone. How can we cast quirky in a more favorable light?
Over the course of my career, I have extensively explored personality and giftedness as a key to understanding people. My findings have been rich and have filled in my understanding where earlier training focused more on disorders and psychopathologies. Personality and giftedness are the infrastructure of a person. When we encounter a quirky person—or anyone, for that matter—is it not imperative to incorporate the individual’s personality, giftedness, and history into our understanding? We fall short if we simply limit our view of the person with a singular focus on their oddities. In order to release the individual to great productivity, wholeness, creativity, and passion, we need to understand the person from within their created being. It’s the intricate, magnificent landscape within that makes the outside make sense.
Within personality and giftedness there are as many variations as there are species of birds, each well suited for the meaning and purposes that God had in mind with his creation. Some animals seem very strange to us, but they serve such value in the grand scheme of life. That is how it is with quirky people. They don’t necessarily fit the mold of the majority, but their unique qualities are perfectly suited to fulfill a purpose that the majority may be incapable of. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we (ALL of us) are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Workmanship, whether mechanical, strategic, digital, or artistic, addresses both the essential make-up of who we are and what and how we contribute. God as the Creator-Workman builds the inside of each individual with personality and giftedness—and yes, He blesses all of humanity with Quirky People.
Grady Yarbrough, Jr., LPC
