WHAT KIND OF FREAK ARE YOU?

Hey you! Yeah, you. The weird, freaky one over there. I'm callin' you out. Does it feel weird that I'm calling you a freak? Well, you are. We all are. You're not alone. Everybody's got something freaky about them.

Think about it. There's something about you that's special, unique, different, aberrant, out of the norm. Maybe it's the funky way you dress, or that weird music you listen to. Maybe it's the way you talk, or the things you talk about--maybe it's what you believe, the truths you hold to be self-evident. Or maybe it's what you do, what you make, or the people you make it with.

Whatever it is, however much of it you have, it's something that sets you apart from most other people, and I bet it's brought you some embarrassment or disapproval--maybe just a little, maybe a lot. But I know this much is true-- it's also what makes you powerful.

Listen, I need your help. I want to reclaim the word "freak"--I want to make it a compliment, not an insult.

We've got to stop being embarrassed or shy about our freaky bits. Our freaky bits are what make each of us unique, fabulous and tremendous.* It's time to stand proudly in our full, complicated, compound selves--and that means honoring and celebrating all those freaky bits that we (or others) have a hard time with.**

Here's my plan. I'm not just talking about "hey go on and speak your truth" and/or "be proud of your glorious freaky self".
That's good--crucial, in fact--but I want to take it one step further. I want to make the "fly your freak flag high" metaphor real.

Let's make ourselves some actual freak flags, people, and fly 'em where everyone can see.

Let's pull together symbols and colors and whatever materials we want and let's make ourselves some flags and have ourselves some parades. Yeah, real ones! Doesn't that sound fun? So here's how we're gonna do it.

FIRST: MAKE A FREAK FLAG

What kind of freak are you?

The first challenge here is to speak your freak in visuals (colors, symbols, words...).  Click here for simple guidelines on how to make your own freak flag, and click here to see how other people do it. You can make a flag on your own, or with other people. Either way, we hope you'll feel good and share what you did.

NEXT: FLY YOUR FREAK FLAG

Got a freak flag? Fly it high!

Think about places and times you can fly your flag. On your wall? Sure. On your blog or web site? Rock it! Outside your abode? Go for it. At a concert? Classic. On your car, on a t-shirt, on tv? I dare you. The point of the thing is to put it out there somewhere. Which leads us to our next point...parades.

THEN: FREAK FLAG PARADES

We gotta be freaky together.

Honoring our individual freaky bits and flying our individual flags is not enough. For even greater impact, we've got see each others' freak flags, so we can appreciate each other's unique freaky bits. We've got to get together for freak flag parades. Click here for more info on upcoming Freak Flag events.

THEN: FIND YOUR FREAK TRIBE

Where does your freaky overlap with other people's?

The more we see each others' freaky proclamations, the more we'll find powerful, meaningful connections and alliances--some familiar, some potentially new and surprising. Who knows what we could accomplish by making some mutually beneficial treaties between freak tribes? Click here for info about our FYFFH online community.

* We urgently need a world full of unique, fabulous and tremendous people, because the more we appreciate our own and each others' full fabulosity, the better and quicker we can pull together to fix what's broken about our communities and our planet. (And you know there's plenty of broken stuff to fix.)

** Just to be clear here, the kind of freaky I'm talking about honoring and celebrating here on this website is the PG-13 kind. I personally support any kind of freaky counterculture deviance as long as it involves mutual consent and respect for each others' personal boundaries and bodies, as well as respect for the environment and for current definitions of property laws--but for the purposes of this project, we're talking about things that are unconventional, not illegal.

It's time to fly our freak flags high.

Let's make the phrase "fly your freak flag high" real.