Modelos desfilan con dos sombreros extravagantes hechos de porcelana en 2012. EFE/EPA/DPA

It is estimated that one in every 5,000 to 10,000 people thinks about themselves as eccentric or extravagant. Their behaviour is different from usual standards, so they think that they are out of ordinary or usual. Eccentric people are happy, optimistic, shrewd, curious and idealistic. They have sense of humour. And if that weren’t enough, they suffer from less stress that the rest of people, what is blessing during crisis time.

“It is out of the centre or has a different centre”

Royal Spanish Academy uses that definition of “eccentric” to Geometry, but it can define people who have a personality out of ordinary.

Many people think that they are unfocussed, but the truth is that their lives revolve around other axis. Furthermore, this behaviour has benefits to them.

Neurophysiologist David Weeks from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital (United Kingdom) met with hundreds of people considered extravagant and made some researches to investigate about the originality of thought and the exactly eccentric profile, which presented on his book “Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness”.

Doctor Weeks affirms that “people out of ordinary” are nonconformist with society, extremely creative and conscious of their strangeness without feeling bad about it.

Also, they drink less or take fewer drugs, go to the doctor less times and live a little more than other persons because “they suffer less from stress due to not repress their nature”, according to Weeks, who estimates that one in every 5,000 to 10,000 people is eccentric, at least at English society.

They are happy and optimistic, with a sharp sense of humour, a childish curiosity and the idealism of a better world.

Doctors of Royal Edinburgh Hospital established that the majority of eccentrics are artist and scientists because their activities are related with creativity.

Doctor Weeks has developed “the therapy of eccentric thinking” for people that should recover their repressed eccentricity, be conscious of their creativity and curiosity’s benefits, and be consistent with their own thoughts without fear. 

Odd and interesting people

Rothkopf’s research explains that there are a high percentage of eccentrics among the 6,000 important personalities which have a decisive influence on the destiny of the 7,000 million of citizens in the world. Most of them are politicians, businessmen, religious leaders or artists.

Eccentrics “have a behaviour that can be out of place, improper or inappropriate, according to the context, place, time or subject. They are characterized by their maladjustment or nonconformity”, as clinic psychologist Laura García Agustín says.

“They are people who don’t mind about special subjects. They don’t care about what people think of their behaviour, so they are freer than those who stop doing or saying something due to the fear of ‘what somebody will say or think’, she emphasises.

“Extravagant people think that he is someone special and the world is full of opportunities. They are creative and eager, their mental activity is fantastic. They are challenged by themselves and have success on what they aim”, García Agustín points out.

EFE-REPORTS/Practica Espanol