Embrace Your Weird

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

Anastasiia and I had dinner with my dear friend Rubén Polendo this past Thursday. Rubén is the founding artistic director of Theater Mitu, the company I’ve been collaborating with for the past 20 years.

At one point during the evening, Anastasiia asked Rubén what had drawn him to work with certain collaborators over such a long period. I had heard his answer before, but something about hearing it again — in this new context, at this moment in my life — hit differently.

Rubén told her, “I’m drawn to the opposites in people and artists and those who hold that tension within their own practice. For instance, a collaborator who presents a strong masculine energy but is actually very soft on the inside.”

That stayed with me.
Because within that tension — between what we appear to be and what we actually are — is often where innovation lives. Not just in art, but in life.

So much of society wants us to be one thing. This or that. Easily summed up. But what if we honored the complexity instead? What if we didn’t put ourselves in a box?

Rubén’s advice — to embrace your weird — sounds simple. But I’ve come to see it as something quietly radical. A kind of inner permission.

Because the older I get, the more I realize: it was all the ways I followed that strange inner compass that made me who I am. That led to meaningful adventures. Deep friendships. The life I’m living now.

So if you’re feeling like you don’t quite fit — good.
It means you’re onto something.

Embrace your weird.
It might just be the most honest thing about you.

A POEM

“Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke

Quiet friend who has come so far,

feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

Grateful,

Michael