Strange Ways

Stolen entire from The Orthosphere:

The Labyrinth of Strange Ways by JMSmith

“All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1878)

“For as health is but one thing, and has been always the same; whereas diseases are by thousands, besides new and daily additions: so all the virtues that have been ever in mankind, are to be counted upon a few fingers; but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap.”

Jonathan Swift, Tale of a Tub (1704)

The word wayward is a cropped version of the word awayward, and it may mean either strong-willed or disposed to act contrary to the way that is right.  As an accusation, the charge of waywardness may therefore be sinister or sincere.  A sinister accusation comes from overbearing and bossy accuser; a sincere accusation warns not to stray into the labyrinth of strange ways.

We all know that the world is full of meddlesome nags and scolds who are outraged and angered by anyone who deviates from their way.  We also know that there are dangerous ways that take men on a one-way trek into the labyrinth of strange ways.

It should be noted that Tolstoy’s famous line speaks of the “resemblance” that happy families have to one another.  He does not say they are identical or exactly alike.  Like happy individuals, they have the will to insist on their right to express their own natures and be themselves; but they also have the wisdom not to plunge through the gate of the labyrinth of strange ways.

I cannot distill that wisdom into a rule because wisdom is the knack for choosing rightly when there are no rules.  Wisdom laughs at those meddlesome nags and scolds but it does not laugh at the labyrinth of strange ways.

Swift tells us that health is simple and disease complex.  Likewise virtue and vice.  Virtuous men are not identical, but neither do they exude the off-putting odor of waywardness that we indicate with words such as odd, weird, peculiar and strange.  When we say a man is peculiar, we do not simply mean that he has the courage defy the herd and be himself.  We mean that there are strong and disquieting indications that he is a pervert trapped in the labyrinth of strange ways.

There is a profound difference between a free spirit and a man who is just plain weird.