Crazy and Not Crazy

Today in our To Write Love On Her Arms IC meeting we shared a couple of stories and experiences. One of the stories that was shared was how one of the members of our group got called crazy in her freshman year by her roommate because she was dealing with issues like anxiety, depression and self-abuse. Her roommate didn't understand and just couldn't grasp (or maybe didn't want to) what it meant to hurt and suffer that way and so just lumped it down to her being "crazy". The gasp and shocked expressions that took over all of our faces when we heard that was incredible. I don't think there was a single one of us who hadn't heard that story before who felt shocked, enraged and maybe even a little pitiful for the person who had said that.

Just because you deal with issues like that doesn't make you crazy. It means you're normal (whatever that means!). You're human, you feel, you think. We all go through different lengths and depths of "craziness" but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with you.

We were discussing deconstruction last week in my one of my English classes and one of the things that we talked about was how Derrida argues that we tend to think and express our thoughts in terms of opposites. For example, something is tall and so not short, masculine and therefore not feminine, conscious and therefore not unconscious, and so on.

In that sense then, what is "crazy"? After some super pro Googling, I found on good ol' thesaurus.com that some antonyms for "crazy" are "realistic", "sane" and "sensible". Someone answered this same question on answers.com, saying that: "A word meaning the opposite of crazy is sane. Some people might equate "sane" with being mellow, indifferent, or not easily rattled" (the bold is an addition). And, this is my favourite, the "best answer" to the opposite word of crazy on Yahoo! Answers is "boring and closed minded". (I know that answers.com and Yahoo! Answers aren't exactly credible sources but I put them in for lols. Everyone needs some lolness in their life)

Do these "opposite" meanings of "crazy" not seem... dull to you? Yes, being realistic is good, it keeps you grounded. But having dreams are even better. They give you something to reach towards and something to focus on.

If, according the above person's definition, "sane" can equate to "indifferent", well then I definitely don't want to be sane. Being indifferent and not caring about anything is such a waste of a life. We were put on this planet for a reason. If we were put on this planet and given this life to be indifferent, why were we put here at all? What would you wake up in the morning for?

And of course, no one wants to be boring and closed minded. That's not fun for anyone.

So if those are the opposites of being crazy, why is it such a bad thing to be crazy? Being crazy sounds a lot more fun than being not crazy, but maybe that's just me. And I guess that makes me crazy.

As the Cheshire Cat says to Alice, "We're all mad here."

But if being crazy scares you, don't worry. You're gonna get better soon. Not not-crazy but something that transcends the awesomeness of being crazy. You're going to be incredible :).


Matchbox Twenty - by Warner-Music