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AskMe: How to become an eccentric (or just look like one)

Suggest eccentricities for me to adopt | Ask MetaFilter

From a fun AskMe thread:

In my quest to become more distinctive, I'm looking for suggestions of harmless eccentricities to adopt. Who better than the MeFi hive mind to provide them? Anecdotes of eccentric folk you've known in the past welcome.

This reminds me of that stage where teenage girls randomly start to affect a terrible british accent, or when college freshmen suddenly stop wearing shoes and take up raw foods and the shakuhachi. Of course, this is not to say that I haven't had ideas of my own.

’Fess up: what was your goofiest affectation and what made you stop it?

Clarification (2006-07-15 10:20:20): The "In my quest..." portion above is a quotation from the link that is referenced; it's not actually me asking for help to (God forbid) become more eccentric. This confused some people, and, well, I regret your confusion if you have any and hope this clarification helps. -- The Management

nex's picture

i'm afraid the following tips...

i'm afraid the following tips are actually about how to become an obnoxious asshole, but maybe you'll find something in there you can adapt to suit your purposes.

pick your nose in public. eat the boogers.

insist on calling black people 'african americans', but only when you're in northern europe.

use quotes from Full Metal Jacket at any possible occasion, but pretend that you've never even heard of the film, let alone seen it. in case there's a book, or a comic, you don't know about that either.

go to the hairdresser twice a month and request the top of your head to be shaven and the bald spot hidden with a comb-over.

learn to speak as if everything you say was originally written in 1900's bulgarian and translated into english by babelfish.

address anyone wearing a uniform (yes this includes UPS and even McDonald's employees) with 'sir' or 'madam', but with the gender reversed.

be genuinely offended every time someone asks you "how are you?" without really expecting to get an answer. proceed with a 15-minute lecture about how miserable your life is.

at any vaguely appropriate moment, tell stories about your time in "'nam", which, in this case, refers to tottenham, england.

learn to speak perfectly without any words that contain the letter 'e'. only actually do that on tuesdays and wednesdays.

whenever you're asked a question you don't know the answer for, promise to forward the question to your personal very best friend, mr. google. however, if there's any chance the answer could actually looked up via google, just say, "beats me."

wear a climbing harness, always jog (never merely walk), and at all times stay in areas accessible by wheelchair. whenever you encounter stairs and an alternate route isn't immediately obvious, ask someone about a handicapped accessible way, in a condescending tone.

whenever typing on a computer keyboard, hit the keys to the rhythm of leroy anderson's typewriter song. as always, feign ignorance about the existence of that piece.

whenever you're asked what you do as a job, say you're a facial expression stylist. this gives you an instant opportunity to observe and critique your newest creation. "furrow the brows a bit more!"

whenever you are asked something, begin your reply with "well" and end it with "but not in a good way".

convince yourself you're the lead character in a bad sitcom. bonus points for carrying a dictaphone with a laugh track, to be covertly turned on for a moment at appropriate moments.

wear shoulder pads.

attach a post-it with an "artist's statement" to your timesheets, tax reports, resumés, you get the idea.

whenever you're taking pictures at a party, first hand out black bars for people to cover their eyes with.

whenever you made a boo-boo, blame it on PMS.

administer a site that will keep people occupied for hours with reading and commenting on ridiculously negligible things (and reading the comments and commenting on those) and pretend it's all about how to become more efficient and get things done.

carry a monitor calibrating puck around your neck like a stethoscope. fling it menacinfly at people who don't use a gamma setting of 2.2.

on sundays, go to places where people feed doves with breadcrumbs or some such. bring a giant pepper mill. you know what to do.

always exhibit a totally neutral facial expression. when you find someone likeable, monotonely pronounce: "colon dash closing parenthesis". in other situations ... you get the idea.

echolalia.

speak like an 8-year-old and insist on being called "mr. president".

join BDSM message boards and newsgroups and ask questions about LaTeX.

whever someone ends a sentence with "..., or what?", reply: "what?"

use spivak pronouns.

use word processors like mathew herbert uses synthesizers: before you save a document, all the knobs must be twiddled, leaving anything at the factory preset is strictly forbidden.

~~~~

Karen said: "This affectation went on for a few years until one day I realized that I wasn’t thinking about it anymore and I had pretty much become lefthanded. THAT freaked me out. I am righthanded now." Karen, I LOVE YOU. Seriously.

 
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