I want to be crazy.
You read that right. I want to be insane. I’m tired of being normal and sane. I was just watching this podcast the other day, and it perfectly encapsulates what I am trying to say right here. The podcast talks about the best of the best. The MJ’s and Tiger Woods of the world. The select few people that reach the top of the top. And what do all of these people have in common? They are all psychotic. They have mental illnesses. They are delusional. They are crazy.
But you know what, that’s what it takes to get everything you want. You have to be out of your mind. Who in their right mind can dream of being the greatest in the world? Who in their right mind would get up at 5 am every day, when they don’t have to, to work on their craft? Who in their right mind would believe that they can be the one to reach the very top?
As I get older and have accepted more responsibility for my life and for where my life is going, I realize that it is very easy to be complacent, especially when you don’t have people telling you what to do all the time. And truthfully, there’s a life path that is laid upon you by others. You know, “graduate from college, get a job, work, get a house, save for retirement, retire, die.” So here I am, having graduated from college and landed a full-time job. Sometimes, I get complacent. I’m good, I am checking off the boxes. But there’s that part of me that still yearns for more; that still feels like I am capable of doing more, of seeing more, of being more than I am now.
I feel it in the days when, I don’t do anything, or when I could have done more. It’s all too easy for me to take a day and do nothing, and justify that as, “you have a job and a good life, you don’t need to push yourself all of the time.” But no matter how much I tell myself that, I feel that I am letting myself down in the deepest part of my soul. One day of complacency leads to two; two leads to three; three leads to a lifetime of complacency. That’s a crazy thing to say, but I’d rather be crazy and think like that than normal and complacent.
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When I think about the craziest people that I know, there is one common trait that every single one of them has. Authenticity. The craziest people, the people that are so different from the “normal” people, don’t care to be like everybody else. I’m not necessarily referring to the mentally deranged, although they share it to, maybe unknowingly. I’m speaking about the people that are extreme in their ways, the people that don’t follow the status quo, the people that simply don’t care to fit in and act normal. In truth, any person that doesn’t fit in with the ways of the world are labeled as crazy.
As I get older and continue to grow and find myself, I have realized that I don’t want to be normal. I don’t want to fit in with the ways of the world. I want to fit in with myself. When I think of some examples of crazy people, I think about Kobe, I think about Pink Floyd, I think about MLK, I think about Jesus. All these different people never cared to fit in with the rest of the world. They cared about the world fitting in with them. They could care less about being weird, strange, or different. These people are just who they are, and that is that. Take it or leave it.
“This is so and so’s world and we’re just living in it.” This old saying is hitting harder than ever for me these days.
I go through a lot of periods in my life where I find myself and then lose myself. I have my days where I feel totally in tune with myself, with my story, and with the kind of person that I want to be. And during these periods, I could really be considered crazy. I feel grateful all the time, regardless of the situation. I present myself the same to everybody, never having to put on masks to fit in. I love hard, I dance in the rain, I obsess about my goals and aspirations, and most importantly, I am just me, all the time.
During the periods of life when I lose myself, the masks come on. I struggle with interaction, because I try to be a different person for different people. I either try to reserve myself or try to be something that I am not. Things feel forced, inauthentic. And the biggest problem with this is that I do myself and others a disservice because for one, I am lost in my head rather than lost in the interaction itself. I forget names, I don’t listen to the other person, I don’t really try to be there for the other person, totally immersed in the interaction. And that is selfish. And on the other hand, the other person doesn’t get to know me, the real me. They see this facade that I am presenting and think that is me. And that doesn’t do any side any favors because that doesn’t breed intimacy.
I want to be the guy that people think is odd. But I want that label because I am being totally me, all the time.
If y’all are anything like me, you reserve your actions and your words, because you think it is out of place. You really want to say something or do something, but you don’t because you feel like you will be judged. I get it, we are told from an early age that there is a time and place for everything. And sure, that is true. Maturity is reading the room and understanding how your actions and words can affect other people. But if you practice this too much, then you will end up reserving too much, and end up building a wall around you and your heart that nobody can get into.
So yes, I want to be crazy. I want to be my total self, regardless of how weird that is, regardless of how I may come across. I just want to be open. I think to be open you must be a little crazy. And to be crazy, you must be open.
It’s funny, I have written this message so many times in so many different forms. But I forget need to remind myself of this.
I want people to talk about me and be like, “yeah that boy is odd, but we love him for that.”
For me, when I am at my craziest self, when I am authentic to my core, that’s where I shine brightest. That’s where I love the hardest. That is where I connect with others in the most profound and beautiful way. When I seclude into myself and put on my masks, I lose that flow and ease of life. I hide my love from the world. My light dims.
I want to shine bright; I want to love hard. I want to be a little odd. And most importantly, I want to be authentic, totally and whole-heartedly true to myself. I want to be crazy. I want to be out of my mind. I want to be so nutty, that I genuinely believe that I can make my dreams come true.