Quirky Freaks and the Real Jedi

Greetings Earthlings,

And anyone else paying attention,

This week's quiz: What has two claws, no teeth and can kill a lion? They have been around for 12 million years and can live to be sixty years old.

An "outlier" is, according to the almighty Wikipedia, a data point that significantly differs from other observations. Generally, Amazon recommendations have someone saying that this is the worst product ever while every other review is five stars. Outlier. Usain Bolt. Outlier. Picasso. Elon Musk. A tsunami is an outlier. So is a meteor.  The Wiki article is itself a fabulous outlier -- generally the exposition of a thing creates understanding, and a concept is simplified. The article for "Outlier", however, immediately digs into the arcane mathematics of probability and deviation, the three Sigma rule, the Mahalanobis distance, interquartile range, and the modified Thompson Tau test... "I'll explain Japan speaking only Japanese" seems like the program.

Back to the quiz: These critters have over a pound of sand and pebbles in their bellies to help grind up food. Usain Bolt can run 27 mph. These guys can run 43. For a while. Only cheetahs can catch them. Hint: They have lush eyelashes and the largest eyes of any land animal.

As I type this, a very, very dark brown squirrel just went up a huge maple behind the studio. There it is. Why isn't she grey like all the others? In college, there were black squirrels on campus and the story circulated that they were mutants or from The Black Forest in Germany. The former is accurate. They are genetic anomalies, although the dumpster behind the dining center might have been a contributing factor. Reasonable assumption...

What animal is nine feet tall? Has skin that makes durable boots? Is pretty tasty, (so they say)? Can weigh 300 pounds? Grows nine inches per month their first year? Has two toes on each foot but only one toe has a claw? Eats shrubbery?

The outliers are the ones who redefine reality; they spin civilization in a different direction.  Jackie Robinson changed all sports forever. George Lucas gave us "American Graffiti," meh. Decent flick. Then Yoda. James Cameron warmed up with "Titanic", so to speak, and then "Avatar" changed visual reality forever. Shakespeare remains a mystery, his genius from seemingly nowhere. Jimi Hendrix. Bach. Steve Jobs. Michelangelo. Wim Hof. Edwin Hubble. Gandhi. The Beatles. Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Outliers," covers this turf well, but...

Consider the ostrich. Weirdest creature ever. (Excepting the octopus, but we covered that here: Dark then Light, Rhythm in Hues. Wings. Can't fly. Lives on parched barrens. Rarely drinks water. You can ride on one, but they can disembowel a human with one kick. Three-pound eggs. Great vision. Wicked ugly -- total jumble of gnarled skin, giant feathers, balding head and protruding bones. Their namesake trait of "head in the sand" is unreal, just a trope. Perfect outliers. Even their name is bizarre. They persist as a freak of nature, strange as fiction.

This week's challenge is to look around at all the chaos and focus on the outliers. Focus on the things that confound. These are the pivot points. Who is changing our notions of reality? Who sees different wavelengths? What ideas suggest radical realignment? Confront that which creates animus in your spirit. Beware the fakers. I have said for years that on a ship full of pirates, it's highly unlikely that the captain isn't one. But we are surrounded by otherness -- the dark squirrel, Crispr, quantum computing, graphene, Banksy, trolls... In the movie "Arrival" is the notion that time is not linear, if one knows the correct language to describe it. Maybe Native Americans know how to manage wildfires. Maybe tides can power the planet. Maybe craft beer prevents Covid. That explains Vermont. Maybe not. But please, my friends, think outside the box that is on fire. Anomalies may be the answer. Or the question. Or the fulcrum.

And as always, value this day that you are gifted.

Be kind to each other. Love will find a way...

And

Vote, damnit.

Your humble servant,

Bruce Mac

P.S. Buy art today. I mean this. Otherwise, well, let's not go into the utter decline of all humanity, the pit of woe, the despairing wails of unfed progeny... yeah, all that...  

P.P.S. And have faith in our humanity to overcome inhumanity. We persist. We are strange as fiction too. Ostrich. Go figure. Super weird. Lots of that going around.

P.P.S.S. Vote Outliers. Vote Out Liars.