Too weird for this world

I’ve often wondered if it was me, or if it was the world. If it was me seeing things all blurry… or if it was the frames imposed on me that were badly drawn. If it was a glitch in my brain. Some twisted wiring, not connected right. Or if I was just suffocating in a mold meant for people who aren’t like me.

They told me I was weird. Too intense. Too sensitive. Too analytical. Too emotional. Too quiet. Too talkative. Too “off topic.” Then one day, I realized it wasn’t “too” that was the problem. It was “not compliant.”

I’m not built for this system. I’m not built for forced linearity, robotic pace, the slick aesthetic they sell us as the horizon. And I’m not just talking about 9–17 jobs, gray open offices, or HR interviews. I’m also talking about so-called “creative” spaces. Those that act all free-spirited but still demand a pitch, an editorial line, a cohesive feed, and a brand strategy. Even your art has to look cute on Canva. Even your voice has to pass the algorithm.

So today, I’m making an episode for the others. The others like me. Those who grew up feeling they were never on the right frequency. Not because they’re broken. But because they’re vibrating somewhere else.

You might know the phrase: “I’m just not made for this.” But has anyone ever asked you what “this” actually is? And what if the problem wasn’t you? What if it was the blurry outlines of everything society expects from you, without ever giving you the code to get in?

What you’re about to hear isn’t a masterclass. It’s not a personal development tutorial. It’s a manifesto. For off-frame artists. For voices that never make it onto those “inspirational” stages. For those who create from the sidelines, in fits and starts, defying every neat category.

I’m not gonna tell you it’s easy. Or that you’re some shooting star just waiting to shine. I’m just gonna show you that your oddness, your non-conformity, your fracture… might actually be your language. Your creative grammar. Your spark.

Welcome to Cappuccino & Croissant. Today, we’re going to talk about the anomaly. Not as a flaw, but as a refusal. A graceful rebellion in a world that’s way too neatly arranged.

🎙️ The frames we never chose

Anomaly isn’t born in rejection. It’s born in doubt. Not your doubt, but everyone else’s. That moment when, as a kid or a teen, you sense something’s off—not necessarily in you, but in how people look at you, how they label you, how they talk to you. It’s not some huge dramatic event. It’s subtle. A recurring feeling. A lingering impression of constant dissonance, like you’re living half a second out of sync with the rest of the world.

Early on, you get the message that there’s a right way to be. A proper way to exist: be focused but not obsessive, creative but not strange, brilliant but not threatening. You’re told to speak up but not too loudly, to ask questions but not the wrong ones, to follow the rules but be original too—just enough to stay appealing. Basically, they want the impossible balance: be a bit different, but never disturbing.

The education system isn’t neutral in all this. It doesn’t truly value divergence; at best, it manages or tolerates it—provided it’s useful. From a young age, we’re taught to perform a social role—not to think differently, but to think efficiently. To produce conformity with a few colorful twists. Even in artistic paths, you’re trained to fit certain formats, structures, expectations. Want to do theater? Here’s your required Molière quota and method. Want to write? Start by learning to keep quiet and respect the classic three-part outline.

And you, in the midst of it all, do your best. You observe. You mimic the code. You get almost good at the game. But something resists. A core of non-belonging that never goes away. Even when you succeed, you feel like a stranger to your own success. You wonder if you’re actually talented or if you’re just better at faking it. And the most insidious part is that nobody ever plainly says, “You’re out of bounds.” They’ll even praise your uniqueness… as long as it stays decorative.

What nobody teaches you is that these frames they impose on you are fabricated—social, economic, cognitive. They’re not neutral. They were built by and for an invisible norm that’s bigger than you. A norm that’s usually white, male, cisgender, neurotypical, middle-class, and perfectly respectable. A norm that reproduces itself in schools, offices, creative spaces, literary prize juries, recommendation algorithms. And if you don’t fit that mold, you automatically become a problem to fix, an energy to channel, a “potential” resource—if you agree to get in the box.

And this is where the fracture becomes political. Because this push toward the norm doesn’t just sideline you—it drains you. It saps your vital energy. It makes you believe your worth depends on your ability to self-discipline. This isn’t just about fitting in. It’s about constantly folding yourself up from the inside. Constantly managing your exuberance, your branching mind, your raw emotion, your hypersensitivity, your anger, your refusal.

And the worst part is, sometimes you start believing it is your fault. That you really are unfit. That you can’t cut it. That you’re not capable. They taught you to doubt your own pace, your shape, your voice. They convinced you that the chaos within is a flaw to be fixed, rather than a complexity to be explored.

But what people label “outside the norm” is often just what won’t bow to oversimplification. What can’t be monetized in 30 seconds. What takes time. What disrupts. What breaks all the measuring tools. What can’t be neatly categorized without betraying its essence. And that, in its own way, is beautiful—but it’s also unlivable in a world that prizes readability over depth.

So no, you’re not a manufacturing defect. You’re not “too much.” You’re not “complicated.” You don’t need to be “fixed.” That constant mismatch you feel isn’t a pathological anomaly. It’s an active dissonance. A parallel vibration. Another way of being. And that’s exactly what we’re going to explore in the following segments.

But before we dive in, remember this: the frames they forced on you were never neutral. They were never built for you. And yet, you’re still here. You haven’t exploded. You haven’t vanished. Maybe you’ve bent, but you never broke. And that, all by itself, is already an act of resistance.

🎙️ Creative industries don’t really like true anomalies

They sold artists the dream of freedom. They told you that if you didn’t fit the classic boxes—school, steady job, tidy life—there would be at least one place for you: the creative world. A world more fluid, more daring, more welcoming. A world where you could “be yourself” and call it a career. Except they forgot to mention this world has rules, too. Its own codes. Its own walls. And sometimes, gilded bars.

Today’s creative scene is one giant paradox. It says it wants you to be unique, but demands you be recognizable. It values authenticity, but only if it’s marketable. It loves original voices—provided they fit a template. In this constant contradiction, truly “off-frame” artists become either exotic exceptions trotted out with a veneer of “inclusivity,” or anomalies that get avoided because they make the system crash.

You see it in how we’re taught to create for social media. These platforms are now unavoidable distribution tools—but they’re also smoothing machines. They optimize. They categorize. You’re not a voice; you’re “content.” You’re not a vision; you’re an “editorial product.” And if you want to stand out in the algorithmic noise, you have to post often, be crystal clear, easily digestible, segmented. Even your pain has to look aesthetic. Even your vulnerability must be monetizable.

They’ll say it’s about “consistency,” “finding your niche,” “building your personal brand.” But in reality, it’s just disguised normalization. We produce artists the way we produce influencers—by thinking about metrics before meaning. And in that world, atypical artists are a problem—because they break formats, they create without a schedule, they aren’t predictable, they dare say “no” to the system’s demands.

And when you refuse to play along, they say you just “don’t get it.” That you should “make an effort.” You get tips and masterclasses on boosting engagement. You’re told to soften your message, to adjust your tone, to fit a formula that’s already proven profitable. If you won’t? You’re “unmanageable.” “Difficult.” “Too complicated.” In other words, you’re too alive for the algorithm.

It’s the same logic in traditional institutions—publishing houses, festivals, grants. They say they’re looking for atypical profiles, but not too atypical. They want diversity, but it better stay in its lane. They tolerate radical ideas as long as they still look classy. They love “outside-the-box” artists who’ve learned to pretend they’re inside the box. They want contained chaos. Flame that stays politely in the fireplace.

And the most insidious part is that “off-format” artists sometimes get turned into mascots. They’ll showcase you like a trophy. Give you a spot on some stage, or a residency, or a kindly framed Instagram post. But underneath, the structure doesn’t change. The precarity remains. The isolation continues. They use you to feel good about themselves, but they never truly include you.

So what do you do? Do you adapt? Self-moderate? Chop off the pieces of you that stick out? Simplify yourself? Pretend you have a neat path when your mind is a labyrinth? Do you become an edited version of you to have a shot at visibility in this world? Or do you hold your ground, accepting you’ll be seen less, understood less, but stay more genuine?

The truth is, creative industries were never really designed to accommodate discomfort. They exploit discomfort. They sell it. But they don’t live it. And yet, that very discomfort—that instability, that dissonance—is what makes art so potent. The things that unsettle us are the very things that transform us. What can’t be shoehorned into neat grids is often what opens up brand-new paths.

Some artists today just refuse to play along. Some vanish from the public eye. Others create in the shadows. Some blow up because they manage to hack the system from the inside. Many remain on the margins—not because they’re lost, but because they know the center is a mirage. And their place is at the edges. The hazy zone. The border of the frame.

Maybe you, too, stand there, in that unstable territory where nothing is guaranteed but everything is possible. It’s not comfortable. It’s not lucrative. But it’s alive. It’s raw. Visceral. And that’s where your art finds its real voice.

In the next segment, we’ll talk about what it means to create as an act of sabotage. To create not to be accepted, but to shake things up. To create like you’re sending out a signal, a fissure, a well-aimed cry into a world too perfectly scripted.

🎙️ Creating as intelligent sabotage

When you’re an anomaly, they teach you early to justify yourself. Justify your tone. Your style. Your pace. Your thinking. Your feelings. Your speech. You’re forced to explain yourself before you can even say what you meant to say. And in this constant self-justification, you start believing your legitimacy hinges on your ability to look like something else—something more acceptable, more standard, more “understandable.” But if you choose to create anyway—without adapting, without smoothing edges, without asking for permission—then what you’re doing is more than expression. It’s sabotage.

Creating as an anomaly is like hacking the rules without replicating them. It’s injecting your vision into a system that ignored you, and making it say things it was never meant to say. It’s refusing to make your work “clean,” in the capitalist sense. It’s breaking narrative lines. Messing with the expected rhythm. Planting silences where people expect punchlines. Taking up space without performing the form. It’s a quiet insolence, but it’s deeply political.

People often think sabotage means destruction. Not really. Sabotage is resisting with intelligence. Sabotaging uniformity. Sabotaging expectations. Sabotaging systems that only allow difference if they can exploit it. Sabotage means creating from refusal, not hatred. It’s saying: “I see you, I hear you, but I choose not to obey.” Not out of laziness or cheap provocation, but because your language doesn’t fit their alphabet.

And yes, it’s uncomfortable. Because when you create like this, you’re out of the mainstream circuits and models. You don’t follow standard storytelling arcs. You don’t tick the personal-branding boxes. You don’t post on a strict schedule. You create when it spills over, when you have to. You put down raw words, or sounds, or images that aren’t chasing instant approval. You’re not offering a product; you’re offering an echo, a tension, a message that needs to be absorbed, not consumed.

The feedback is slower. The world might not applaud. It might not understand. It might stay silent. And in that silence, you have to hold steady. Learn not to seek external validation. Create without immediate reactions. Create anyway. Persist. Even if your work doesn’t fit any algorithm. Even if no platform knows what to do with you. Even if everything around you screams that you’re “wasting your time,” while what you’re really doing is gaining your voice.

Because in truth, you’re building an alternate space—a refuge. A friction zone where other voices, other bodies, other sensitivities might find themselves. You’re inventing a parallel language. A different shape. A small world where complexity isn’t a threat but a treasure. And even if that world is tiny or imperfect, it’s got huge power: it doesn’t need any official seal of approval to exist.

Creating as an anomaly also means refusing constant performance. Admitting your energy isn’t infinite, that you can’t be productive 24/7. Sometimes you disappear. You retreat. You rebuild. You don’t create to fill a content calendar; you create when you can breathe again. That’s sabotage, too—sabotage of the industrial logic, of the endless hustle, of self-exploitation.

And that refusal is all the stronger when it’s deliberate. You’re not pretending you “don’t want success.” You know your voice deserves to be heard—but not at any cost. Not by betraying yourself. Not by scraping off the very things that make you powerful just to be more palatable. You’d rather be complex than clear. You’d rather be true than popular. You’d rather be slow than “profitable.” And you keep going, even if nobody claps.

Creating as an anomaly is also about creating for the ones who never see their stories told without being reduced to caricature. It’s writing the margins. Amplifying the silences. Pointing and saying, “Look here, where it spills over.” You’re not speaking on behalf of anyone; you’re speaking to occupy space, forcing it to redraw itself. To include what it once chose to ignore.

And if what you make doesn’t fit any category, good. That means you’re alive. You’re not a finished piece, but a living process. You’re not here to reassure anyone; you’re here to shift things.

Creating as sabotage means deciding to stay true to your spark, even if it burns off-beat. It’s refusing to be polite when you’ve always been told to apologize. It’s saying “I’m here” even if no one’s handing you the mic. It’s a soft but explosive audacity. A way of existing across the grain. Of writing in spirals. Of weaving your world without permission.

And maybe one day, people who chase the norm will stumble on your voice and wonder, “Why haven’t I seen this before?” And the answer’s simple: you weren’t there to be seen. You were there to be real.

🎙️ Conclusion — “I’m not a glitch. I’m another language.”

If you recognized even a fraction of yourself in this episode, you’re not alone. You’re not broken. You’re not illegible. You just grew up in a world where who you are was never the reference point. And it’s not on you to apologize for that.

You have the right not to adapt. The right to create in your own way. The right to take detours. To change your mind. To fail. To start over. To stay vague. To be odd. To be shifting. To be alive. The right not to match what people expected of you.

Creating when you don’t fit any frame isn’t just an uphill battle—it’s a subtle kind of insubordination. It’s telling the world: I won’t make myself smaller just to please you. It’s refusing to be reduced. It’s standing firm that your complexity isn’t a weakness; it’s your vocabulary. Your aesthetic. Your territory.

You might never get the spotlight they give others. You might never top the charts. But you’re here. And every time you create, you crack those walls a bit more. You map out a different path. You offer an alternative narrative.

And that alone is huge.

If this episode spoke to you, stung you, soothed you, or just reminded you you’re not some faulty prototype, then subscribe to Cappuccino & Croissant—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you pretend to work while scrolling.

You can also explore my other creations:

• Books, in French or English, where the anomaly becomes a story.

• Music that wasn’t crafted to please but to leave a mark.

• Social media if you want to see what it’s like when I go off-frame in my Stories: Insta, TikTok, Bluesky, or somewhere deep in the algorithmic void.

💌 There’s a Patreon if you want to support this podcast, my work, and my late-night sessions turning the margins into a voice. You’ll get behind-the-scenes material, bonuses, real talk, and maybe one or two confessions that should’ve never been published.

Thanks for listening to this manifesto.Thanks for creating.Thanks for refusing to fit the boxes.

And above all: stay blurry. Stay intense. Stay weird. Because in a world that wants to label everything, your oddity might be the only true form of elegance. All right, see you around. 💙