“Surreal”, “Strange” and “Strange” are “new normal” and are now mediocre in themselves. “Crazy” is daily news. He’s still wise. Conservatives argue that they will set things straight, liberal whining.
So what else was new and what happened in the future? The ideological leader claims that when you freeze your body to death, you spend time for immortality. Regardless: Death is not final. Atoms and molecules are reconstructed – or digitized. Physics is said to indicate that we can die and live at once, depending on how you see it. The billionaires are planning for a Mars colony with quantum life support (“Athena”).
Back in our world, the strange truth is “oddly true.” The capital letters scream. Orwell’s Doublethink (“2 + 2 = 5”) makes straight talk look old-fashioned. Uncool. Capital-T Truth is cast as an offensive, white “Euro centric”, human-centric. Pronouns become weapons in the promise of restoring masculinity.
And it goes: when nothing is strange, everything is flat. Texting is a new literacy. The punk ends on the runway, and Starbucks serves avocado toast. Unconventional things will be traditional. The difference is not dominant. Imitation does that. As one poet puts it, “There is nothing else to assume our existence.”
The poet Philip Larkin wrote in “The Importance of Other Places”:
I’m lonely in Ireland. The house wasn’t a home,
The strangeness makes sense.
Rejection of salt in speech,
He welcomed me by claiming the difference:
Once that was recognized, we reached out…
Irish British find a sense of paradoxical attributes that are foreigners. “Rejection of Salt in Speech” and “Drutty Street” mark him as different, but through that difference he is welcomed. Back in England, habits are his own, and that’s the problem. Those who are familiar will close.
The poem suggests that elsewhere it is not an option, but essential. Only for those who are unfamiliar can we get a glimpse into who we are. Strange things give shape to the self. Without it, identity sinks into habit. That’s why good writing and true art disrupts us from balance. It encourages us to reconsider what we think we know.
We don’t see our faces. The most familiar sights are also the strangest. Our self is no different either. Only through oddity can we know it.
Cultural Critic Nadia Asparrowhova, Indian Resistantsharpens the point: some of the most consequential ideas are least likely to become entrenched. They lack the catchiness of memes, but without them we risk the identity that flattens our thoughts. If Isaac Newton had written a memoir, it might have been called I really hope I made you angry. It’s ignored, sneered, then celebrated. His story is a genius cliché and essentially a meme.
Strangeness is not only cultural or personal, but also intellectual. The insight of anxiety is silent. To welcome them is to resist drifting into conventions that all sound the same. Life is strange. Sometimes those who resist the crowd still carry the day.
Strangely true can be oddly true. When we deny our own strangeness and project it onto others, polarization becomes wild. The strangeness goes nowhere. It appears wearing someone else’s face. What else is new?
Gk Chesterton writes about “the whole object of travel is not to step into foreign lands, but to finally step into your country as foreign lands.” What we bring back is a transformed view. Without it, the house would be boring.
You don’t need to live in another universe, go to Mars, or visit Ireland. We are odd enough where we are. Each of us is unique and that is oddly true. When everyone is different, no one is normal. Even at home, our differences mean that we are not entirely alone.
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am big, I have a crowd.” (Walt Whitman)
New ones are still coming. Sometimes that makes sense.
Notes and reading
Philip Larkin, Whitson’s wedding (1964), 15–16. Includes “the importance of other places.” Here, differences create attributions.
Nadia Asparrowhova, Antibody: Why some ideas resist spreading (2025). Author on Internet culture. Some of the most important ideas are difficult to share.
Isaac Newton – Innovation and controversyPeter Rowlands (2018), 1.1. Newton was praised and spoiled, but he couldn’t try hard to avoid discussion, but spent much of his time quarreling.
GK Chesterton – “The Ivy Mystery”, Absurdly trivial thing (2012 edition), 163. Chesterton explores the philosophical principles of everyday life, using normal events to explain deeper problems.
Walt Whitman, Leaf of grassin Poetry and proseeds Justin Kaplan (Library, 1996), 87.
Also:
Rene Girard, People who are getting scandals (2014). Paraphrase: imitation breaks down differences. The strange ones are scapegoated, rivalries are resolved, and sometimes in blood, rarely become peaceful.
Fix: My last post originally appeared in the Christian Church Daily prayersdaily resources of prayer and reflection. Thank you to Mary Ruty and UCC for agreeing to share it here. Readers can learn more Subscribe (free).
Beauty makes everything easier
We’re the right place
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
