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We have an interesting way of describing people who think differently. We call them nuts. We say they have a screw loose.

Perhaps there is something revealing in the metaphor. A nut and a screw are both essential components, but they have completely different applications. One is not defective simply because it cannot perform the function of the other. Yet we often do something similar with people.

We judge them against a standard designed for someone else. The person who questions everything is called difficult. The person who refuses to conform is called strange. The person who sees possibilities where others see limitations may simply be considered “a little bit nuts” but perhaps being different is not the same as being defective.

A screw that does not belong in a particular nut is not necessarily a bad screw. It may simply belong somewhere else. The same can be true of people.

Sometimes, what looks like a personality flaw in one environment becomes an extraordinary strength in another.

The problem may not be that someone has a screw loose. Perhaps we have simply been trying to tighten the wrong screw into the wrong nut, and maybe some of the people we call “nuts” are simply using a different set of tools to build something we have not yet imagined.