Are You Flying a “Freak Flag?” If Not, Give It Some Serious Consideration.

If you’re over 60 and aren’t weird, you need to get there.

No, not that type of weird.

Weird in a “modern elder” way.

Chip Conley of Modern Elder Academy blogs daily at wisdomwell@modernelderacademy.com and rocks my brain at least 2 to 3 times per week with something out on the edge.

He did it again recently when he wrote about flying a “freak flag” as a modern elder.

I hope, dear reader, you remember that those of us of advanced numbers should be thinking as “modern elders.”

Here’s a refresher in case the concept is fuzzy:

Chip supports his freak flag notion with this quote from Michael Meade, author of “Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul.” (Bolding is mine.)

“In old traditions, those who acted as elders were considered to have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld. Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the unseen realms of spirit and soul. A person in touch with the otherworld stands out because something normally invisible can be seen through them…Those who would become truly wise must become weird enough to be in touch with timeless things and abnormal enough to follow the guidance of the unseen. Elders are supposed to be weird, not simply ‘weirdos,’ but strange and unusual in meaningful ways…Elders are supposed to be more in touch with the otherworld, but not out of touch with the struggles in this world. Elders have one foot firmly in the ground of survival and another in the realm of great imagination. This double-minded stance serves to help the living community and even helps the species survive.”

So, if you are getting “weirder” as you age, that should explain it. Or, at least we hope it does, and not something else.

Chip calls it playing in cosmic limbo between here and the hereafter, seeing things the rest of the world can’t.

“It take digesting one’s past to see the future better.”

I’m working on it!

I’m not sure I can fill Meade’s tall order yet. I believe my bride, progeny, and some members of the extended family would attest to a certain level of weirdness in yours truly. Not sure it’s exactly in the vein described above, however.

Given Chip’s cosmic limbo comment, I’m thinking my weirdness needs some cranking up.

Two other comments in Chip’s article provide me motivation for that:

• Change tends to happen on the edges.
• If you’re not careful, you’ll turn out ordinary.

Those team up nicely with two reminders I have taped at the top of my laptop keyboard that inspire me on productive days and needle me on bad days:

• “Be obsessed or be average” – Grant Cardone
• “You’re either remarkable or invisible” – Seth Godin

I’m finding that the degree of average is directly proportional to the degree of obsession.

Are you “obsessed” with what you want the second half of your life to look like? to be? to accomplish?

Or settling for average?

Are you “invisible” and silently carrying a lifetime of meaningful skills, experiences, and stories?

Or are you willing to fly your “freak” flag and share your wisdom?

Chip concludes with this encouragement:

“Of course, our challenge is not to be weird for the sake of being weird; it’s about the freedom and power of being wired differently (which makes you that good kind of weird). A valuable elder is a conduit. Like an electrical adapter in a foreign country, the elder knows how to translate and transmute a current (or power source) so that it’s available to the rest of us.

So, let your freak flag fly, modern elder—let your wired wisdom become a hot channel for those attracted to your electrical charge.

We need your weird energy more than ever.”

How ’bout it modern elders?

Let’s get weird together.

Let’s test the edges with the youngers. They’re listening.

Let’s fly a freak flag.

Flying a freak flag already?  What’s it look like? Tell us about it with a comment below.