My father has always been a source of pride and frustration for me. He is incredibly smart, knows an amazing amount of trivia, and is pretty well informed about most everything (except pop culture). However, his people skills are and have always been somewhat lacking. The biggest area where this shows would be in the general area I term "weird stuff".
Weird stuff includes everything from crop circles and the shroud of Turin to kambucha and keifer. It's the stuff that isn't generally thought well of by mainstream America. And Dad loves it. He's constantly coming up with new theories and concepts off the internet, and he often doesn't seem to exercise much judgment before running with the idea.
Worse yet, he likes to mention these things to every visitor we have... and Mom loves to have company. So, I grew up being embarrassed by my father seeming to shove this weird stuff down the throats of everyone who walked in the door.
Recently, however, I've been following a path that's led me to find and try out some weird stuff of my own. My path doesn't follow my father's, but is still similar enough to draw the comparison. I'm now looking into "No Poo" a method of hair washing that doesn't strip the natural oils out of the hair. I've just ordered and plan to begin using a deoderant stone instead of standard deoderant. And most would probably say that my interest in unschooling, libertarianism/anarcho capitalism, and paganism would be somewhat down the weird path as well. The big difference between me and my dad (hopefully) is that though I do mention the concepts when opportunity presents, I think I'm better at listening to people when they lose interest in a topic.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting and figured I'd share.
