I caught myself asking that question the other day. “Am I crazy?”
It’s funny how casually we use that word.
Someone does something unexpected and we say, “That’s crazy.”
Someone takes a huge risk and they’re crazy.
Someone has an unusual idea and we call them crazy.
And then there’s the much more serious meaning of the word: when we use it to describe someone who is mentally unwell or disconnected from reality.
Two very different meanings. Yet we use the same word for both. That got me thinking about what “crazy” actually means.
Maybe being crazy means being completely detached from reality. Or maybe it simply means being a little outside what everyone else considers normal. And those two definitions produce very different outcomes.
If you’re genuinely disconnected from reality, that’s something that deserves understanding and care.
But if being “a little crazy” means thinking differently, taking chances, laughing at inappropriate moments, starting something nobody expects you to start, or deciding at 57 that you’re going to put on a Fringe show…
Then maybe I’m okay with being a little crazy. In fact, I wonder if we all need some of it.
Look at the world we live in.
Constant notifications.
Endless information.
Work pressures.
News coming at us from every direction. Financial worries. Relationships. Family responsibilities. A thousand things competing for our attention every day.
And somehow we’re expected to remain completely calm, rational, productive human beings through all of it.
Maybe that’s the crazy part.
Sometimes I think the people who appear the most “normal” are simply better at hiding how overwhelmed they feel.
We all have moments when we talk to ourselves.
We all have irrational fears.
We all make decisions that don’t make complete sense.
We all laugh at things that probably aren’t funny.
We all occasionally want to escape to somewhere nobody knows our name.
Perhaps that’s not madness.
Perhaps that’s being human.
I’ve also learned that some of the best things I’ve done in my life probably looked a little crazy from the outside.
Leaving a career.
Travelling.
Starting over.
Becoming a bubble artist.
Writing a Fringe show about my own life.
None of those decisions would have happened if I had insisted on doing only what was safe and predictable.
Sometimes you need a little “crazy” to change direction.
A little courage.
A little irrational optimism.
A willingness to say: “Why not?”
Maybe that’s the kind of crazy we should protect.
The kind that keeps curiosity alive.
The kind that makes us laugh.
The kind that encourages us to try something new.
The kind that reminds us that life doesn’t always have to make perfect sense before we live it.
So am I crazy? Probably.
But perhaps we’re all a little crazy.
And maybe in a world that asks us to carry so much, being a little crazy is simply another way of staying human.