Eccentrics

[Fletch]

I think perhaps I misunderstand the definition we are each using for eccentric or eccentric behavior. I have always associated it with genius or creativity - behavior that is out of step with societal norms and seen in some highly successful individuals.

Aren't they more often known by slightly more positive (potent? valorizing? masculine?) terms - mavericks? trailblazers?

To me, another connotation of eccentricity is that it is not adaptive, productive, or of lasting value. I think of eccentrics as people with might have done great things—if they'd gotten it together.
Esther Dyson might once have been eccentric, but has now achieved too much.
Howard Hughes, OTOH, let it take over his life - to the point where it was his money doing good things, not him, and so he qualifies.

 

[Foofoogal]

http://books.google.com/books?id=IS..._MyiAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3

I take it back about Howard being mentally ill. He may of been drugged instead. Different time and place.
------------
On this count would Elvis be considered eccentric?

 

[Fletch]

Dunno. Can a superstar be an eccentric? Even if he is somewhat lost and wasted, as Elvis increasingly was? (You kinda have to blame Col. Parker, who built him into a magic money-making machine and discouraged him from serious acting, which he wanted to do.)

 

[Diamondback]

FFG, there is very little that's certain about Hughes, but one of the things that is is that he was a real piece of work--a tormented genius, albeit with some of that torment coming from consequences of his own actions.

->He lost both his parents on the same day early in life, and never really got over it--this is part of why he never really was able to "connect" with his fellow person or have a stable relationship* I believe. (My personal opinion is he was working with a form of Asperger's syndrome**, and though I can't prove it this would he fits the profile for these trigger conditions.)
*Getting too far involved with notorious heartbreaker Ava Gardner couldn't have helped...
**IMO misnamed, from my experience it's really more like "a different mind built to do different things than 'normal'."

->The XF-11 crash (one of those torments of his own making; tangentially part of another at the same time, his peeing-contest with fellow engineering-legend Kelly Johnson) inflicted burns on a level that they never truly heal, once you're scorched that bad the pain never goes away. Becoming addicted to the painkillers he was prescribed (I think they had him on morphine or heroin) and no detox afterward didn't help.

->In the end, IIRC he had contracted terminal syphilis (the heart failure that killed him being a possible complication thereof), which also has an irreversible trip into LooneyTunes-land as a component.

Basically, I think it's reasonable to say there's a fine line between genius and madness, and at the altitude Hughes was "flying" at, it wouldn't take much to push him into the "Coffin Corner" of madness where he ended up. Personally I regard the man with a blend of admiration for his vision and talent, pity and regret--if he and Johnson could've put their differences aside and pooled their talents, I think they could have built something even more spectacular than either alone.

 

[stephen1965]

Dunno. Can a superstar be an eccentric? Even if he is somewhat lost and wasted, as Elvis increasingly was? (You kinda have to blame Col. Parker, who built him into a magic money-making machine and discouraged him from serious acting, which he wanted to do.)

Both Elvis and the Colonel had their eccentricities...I think you're right, Elvis had to channel his eccentric talents into being a 'magic machine'.

IMO the eccentric 'type' is connected with a very active Thymus.

'Has it yet fallen to the lot of any writer upon the thymus to write the truth and be believed?---Beard, 1902.'" (Diamond, M.D., page 8)

 

[Foofoogal]

Personally the ones I see as eccentric usually come with a very good story that I just have to hear. Mostly when others do not.

and this is why I said this. I have known some true eccentrics that were and/or geniuses.

 

[i_am_the_scruff]

Vivienne Westwood!

 

[59Lark]

howard hughes never same after plane wreck.

MY opinon and thats all it is, that poor howard was never the same after the plane wreck, head injuries are a never the same injury and perhaps he did have aspbergers as well. The above average intelligence and the sensitivity to sound, smell and light would make sense. The germ ideas could be the brain injuries, read an piece on his custom freezer cars, had a couple of cars made up with their own refrigeration units, like riding in a freezer. Also had electrial hook up to start airplanes built into the cars. The idea that anyone different is eccentric makes us all want to run into the street screaming . A point taken is that if i had too become like 70 of the masses out there , i might just end it. MY late father said once you dont want to be sheep son, you know what the wolfs do to the sheep dont you son. So i wear a fedora everyday, I drive a studebaker in the summer, my bike is a retro 56 schwinn and i dont like modern music, am I ECCCENTRIC.? fftopic:

 

[Foofoogal]

MY late father said once you dont want to be sheep son, you know what the wolfs do to the sheep dont you son.

this is funny and wise.

 

[stephen1965]

...you know what the wolfs do to the sheep don't you son.

Nice saying..I agree about not being a sheep but wonder whether it's best, in certain circumstances, to not identify with being eccentric either. That way, if you like, you could be an eccentric in sheep's clothing or even an eccentric in wolf's clothing..

 

[Edward]

Vivienne Westwood!

Once upon a time, yes. Nowadays, however (and arguably as far back as since she met Malcom Maclaren), I would consider her to be more a contrarian than a true eccentric. The true eccentric is someone who merely does their own thing, commonly without any especial awareness that they are somewhat different than the herd. Many of those whom I have met who self-label as eccentrics are often chronic attention seekers at best - "Look at me! I'm so different and wacky!" Naturally, such people are by their very nature the least eccentric persons one could possibly meet.

 

[shortbow]

Very wise, Edward.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Once upon a time, yes. Nowadays, however (and arguably as far back as since she met Malcom Maclaren), I would consider her to be more a contrarian than a true eccentric. The true eccentric is someone who merely does their own thing, commonly without any especial awareness that they are somewhat different than the herd. Many of those whom I have met who self-label as eccentrics are often chronic attention seekers at best - "Look at me! I'm so different and wacky!" Naturally, such people are by their very nature the least eccentric persons one could possibly meet.

-this- :eusa_clap


Eccentric is now a thing to be boastfully proud over...which takes it far from the former definitions of it.

 

[Fletch]

Eccentric is now a thing to be boastfully proud over...which takes it far from the former definitions of it.

Bzzzt, trap door, slide whistle. Selling yourself is not what eccentrics do. Too socially adapted. True eccentrics can be retiring or they can be grandiose, but they usually don't trade in social capital. To do that they'd have to care how others saw them.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Bzzzt, trap door, slide whistle. Selling yourself is not what eccentrics do. Too socially adapted. True eccentrics can be retiring or they can be grandiose, but they usually don't trade in social capital. To do that they'd have to care how others saw them.

which was my point....a lot of the people that so proudly claim to be eccentric....-aren't-...by the simple fact that they claim to be so..

a true eccentric just -is-...and others call them eccentric....


this is precisely the reason why I say I am eclectic....or have eclectic tastes in music..etc.

 

[Tomasso]

In 2003 I spent a very long evening with Vivienne Westwood (a friend bought her line for her boutique) and while she was a joy she was pretty much a hard core businesswoman.