We All Have Our "Chainsaws"

Last night, my husband and I were watching Family Feud.  If you have watched the show, you know that some people are really bad at this game.  Every time it comes to their turn, they give some random wacky answer that you know is not going to be on the board, and the team gets a big X.  Well, last night's episode had one of the worst players I have ever seen.  He was a young guy, probably about 20, and he got a big X for every answer he gave.  In an incredibly puzzling move, the family decided to send this kid to the "fast money" round.  One of the questions in the fast money round was "Name something that people cut their fingers on."  Without missing a beat, the kid replied "A chainsaw!"  His reply sent a rush of laughter over both my husband and me, and we were laughing to the point of almost crying.  Who cuts their finger on a chainsaw?  More like you cut a leg off with a chainsaw!  It was probably the most ridiculously funny "legitimate" answer he could have given.  When the host was going through the answers at the end, he got to that question, then the kid's answer appeared on the board as "Chainsaws"... and seeing the plural made me laugh even harder.  But, then... the kicker!  He got TWO POINTS for the answer "chainsaws"!  Two other people had said "chainsaws" when asked to name something a person cuts their finger on.  That was just too much for me to take, and at this point I was literally rolling on the floor laughing and thought I might die of asphyxiation.

I was simply amazed by the fact that three separate people could give the same ridiculous answer to a question.  I was sure that no one else would give that answer, but obviously, I give my fellow man too much credit.  :)  I guess the odds are, if one person thinks of it, there is probably at least one other person whose brain goes to that same place.  With all the people in the world, I'm sure it is incredibly difficult to think of something completely unique and original.  Looking at it that way, nothing is quite as weird as you think.  Your weird is always another person's normal, and probably more than one person's normal, at that.

All of my life, I have been a "thinker."  When I was a child, I used to lie in bed in the morning and just think.  I would try to imagine the shape of the universe.  Was it a box?  A sphere?  If it was a finite shape, what was beyond that shape?  How did infinite space exist?  How did things begin to exist?  If they were always there, how was that possible?  Was there a beginning of time?  If so, what was before that?  If the universe wasn't here, what else would be here?  Is my life real?  Would I even know if it wasn't?  Does it matter?  On and on and on.  Yes, I may have been a big genius nerd as a child.  I actually thought about these things from a pretty young age.  I always said I could never go into a theoretical field of study because I am just too "curious" to ever be satisfied with any answer.  I was such a curious child that I would often try to hold my breath just to see if I eventually would die from suffocation.  I wasn't suicidal, I just "wanted to see" if that's what would happen.  Obviously, it didn't.  Curiosity satisfied!

When I would think all of these things, I was sure that no one else had ever thought about them before.  As a child, you are only aware of the known.  No one had ever talked to me about the shape of the universe or the concept of infinity.  I did not know that these were things that had been studied at length for probably hundreds of years.  To me, these were totally random and unique thoughts.  Looking back, I now know that every thing I ever wondered about was something that other people wondered about, as well.  Maybe the vast majority of people do not sit and think about the shape of the universe, and maybe they don't wonder if you can die from holding your breath.  But, some people do.

Is it comforting to know we are not alone in our thoughts?  Or does it make us feel a sense of loss of individuality?  Of course, there is no one else in the world exactly like you... but a part of us is in each other.  Our similarities are what make us the human race and what connect and sustain us.  Truly unique thoughts may be extremely rare, but luckily, a person is not a single thought.  We are all unique combinations of those less-than-unique thoughts.  Singular constructs of common elements.

Our weird is what makes us normal.  And, remember, we're never quite as weird as we may think.  We all have our "chainsaws"...