The guy down the street cares for a tree that bears many different types of fruits. It's not his specialty, just a hobby. In his day job he works at a museum that specializes in the collection of mummified body parts and at night he likes to role play with random naked women from all over the world. Does that even seem strange anymore‽
If he invented something amazing would we history books of the future describe him as eccentric? I don't think so.
Your guy down the street I guess is kinda weird, but to your point, today that level of weirdness doesn't require courage or innovative thought so probably wouldn't correlate to invention.
My hunch is that in the near future, brave "weirdness" is going to be people who dare to not be woke.
Re the eccentricity inflation, I do think the fact that we now know more about everyone and everything means the need for peacocking is much higher! So it does play a part.
We just passed through 4 years of Trump, QAnon, the resurrection of flat earthers, a man wearing horns storming Capitol hill, Goop selling out of $5 candles selling for $80 because they smell like Gwyneth Paltrow vagina, GameStop take downs, Imelda Marcos 2,700 shoe fetish, and a training driver trying sink a hospital ship by ramming it. It's not so out there for some parts of the world, but for a fellow Australian "That's my Boy" [0] takes the cake.
And the claim is we don't have eccentricity like the old days. Ye gods, I hope the aren't pining for the old days.
