A little insanity is good for you.
I know how unusual that sounds, but it¹s true; we need to have a touch of craziness in ourselves and in our lives.
Now don¹t get me wrong, I think sanity is a wonderful thing. It¹s important to be as sane as you can most of the time in this world. Sanity is what makes us function‹we need it to be able to do all sorts of things: work, walk, communicate, etc. There is a need for sanity in the world. Sanity gives life structure and form and regularity. Sanity is serious.
And that seriousness is its flaw as well as its bonus.
A lot of life depends on sanity, but there are also parts that largely depend on insanity. We need a bit of insanity just as much as we need a lot of sanity. It¹s good to have much more of the latter than the former, but that small amount of the former is just as necessary.
Why? Because of a paradox: a little insanity is exactly what keeps us sane.
If we couldn¹t go a little crazy in this world, be willing to laugh a bit about things that happen to us, or just sit back and smile every now and then for no reason, or even just get really involved in something that¹s out of the ordinary, then we¹d all be locked up in the padded rooms of the mental institutions our parents used to threaten us with‹you know, the ones that still have lobotomies and all sorts of dangerous mental patients. Insanity is a defense against being overly stressed by the pressures of our normally sane lives. Sure, some of us are more sane than others, but we all need some degree of insanity to keep us within the boundaries of what society considers ³sane².
Not everything we do in this world really fits along with the ideas of what is considered sane behavior. Those times and actions are some of the little bits of insanity that we all have. Some people go a little crazy at football games (myself included), and others are so addicted to a soap opera that they will work their schedule around it (me again). Things like just hopping in the car and going for a drive with no particular destination in mind isn¹t exactly the most logically explained behavior in the world‹it certainly doesn¹t flow along lines with absolute sane activity, but for some people it¹s just what they need to do (yes, me once again).
Insanity is a release. It¹s that one thing that we can use to combat stress and to cope with all the situations we face in our lives. Not everything in this world is logical, or fair, or understandable, so we use our own illogical or unfair or confusing behavior to counter that. It all falls along the idea of the old cliche that drastic times call for drastic measures.
When logic, and probability, and the law of averages, and all the other means we have to justify and explain things fail, then what do we do?
Well, that¹s where the question of the supernatural comes up. Many people look to astrology and fortune telling by various means, which have no distinct factual basis, and it¹s a way for many to justify the failings of science and technology to come up with reasons for why things happen that aren¹t ³supposed² to. I¹ve already mentioned Nostradamus‹that¹s a perfect example.
Going crazy is something we all need to do at times. It¹s the behavior that is actually sought sometimes. Think about it: if you went to a sporting event and the whole time all you did was sit and do nothing‹you didn¹t care about what was going on, or who was playing, or what the score was, or where you were, and you didn¹t get excited at all, chances are, you probably wouldn¹t have any fun. Well, by going a little crazy and getting excited about things that are going on in the game, by having that interest, there¹s a better chance of you having a good time, and you¹ll leave feeling like your time had been well-spent. Of course, outside of the sport and its followers, the game you go to has little or no impact on the rest of the world‹it¹s not sane to get so wrapped up in something that has little or no real consequence on the state of things in the universe, but many of us do it anyway. So what if it¹s illogical?
Life is hardly the most logical thing in the world today anyway.
The idea of favorites is another issue in our society. What do some people favor one color or one number more than another? Or, for example, if you like a sport, chances are, you have a favorite team, and that you like some teams more than others. After all, that determines who you cheer for when you watch a contest. What is it about that team that makes them your favorites? Some people can cite a particular player, or that the team wins. That¹s not the same thing. An all-out interest and dedication and loyalty to a team isn¹t something that is completely logical. That involves things that aren¹t figured in along the lines of reason: the willingness to stick by that team, even when it isn¹t doing well, or if your favorite player on the team leaves‹things like that are what has earned the sports enthusiast the nickname ³fan², an abbreviated form of the word ³fanatic².
A fanatic is someone that is so dedicated to a cause that he/she is not going to be swayed from that cause, regardless of any information or views presented to him/her. Logic doesn¹t sway the fanatic. Science doesn¹t sway the fanatic. Fanatics believe in their causes, and the power of belief can easily be underestimated.
Belief isn¹t something that is entirely logical. We don¹t try to justify our beliefs to ourselves, and we face up to anyone that challenges our beliefs.
That¹s where going crazy in our lives comes in again. We go a little crazy by believing things. If we were the purely scientific and logical race we sometimes believe we are, then no one would be convinced of anything without first having it proved to him/her.
Insanity is good for the world in this way, also. If we doubted everything, our lives would be unmotivated‹there¹d be no incentive to propose new ideas, because they would be condemned from the beginning. Humankind would be a race of skeptics, and this nonbelieving society would get nowhere. There have been too many times in history (and no doubt there will be countless times in the future) when someone would formulate a unique idea that was judged as crazy by the society, and yet turned out to be a truly brilliant idea; a breakthrough.
Christopher Columbus is probably the favorite example of Americans. If he hadn¹t believed that the world was round, following the beliefs of some earlier scientists, he would never have been able to convince Spain to let him sail across the Atlantic in search of a route to India. He and other explorers of his time: John Cabot, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan (whose expedition finally proved it), etc. all believed in the same idea. If they hadn¹t believed it, it¹s hard to determine whether the United States, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and all the other nations of North, South, and Central America would even exist today.
Another American example is that of the Founding Fathers. No European country since 44 BC had maintained a form of government that did not feature a monarch or dictator of one type or another. Still, our leaders were willing to experiment, because they were unsatisfied with the idea of one supreme ruler. So they tried different ideas, first with the Articles of Confederation, and then with the Constitution, creating the republic that is known today as the United States of America.
Were the explorers crazy? Were the Founding Fathers? Do we see them as being crazy? For the most part, no. Were they doing crazy things, though? Absolutely. It takes a little insanity to do something that completely defies the laws of convention. But sometimes, that¹s just what the world needs. The occasional crazy thought belongs in the sane mind. That¹s why people are sane‹they have those occasional crazy thoughts, they do things that they would never dream of doing under normal circumstances. Insanity is what reduces our restraint and frees us from our inhibitions. Creativity is insanity. And we need creativity in this world‹it¹s the only way we¹re ever going to solve some of the problems facing us in this world, especially the ones for which we see our ³solutions² aren¹t working the way we hoped they would.
We need a little insanity. I¹m not afraid to be willing to do something a little crazy every now and again. I need my insanity, just as much as I need my sanity. Without one, I wouldn¹t have the other.
There¹s nothing wrong with going a little crazy in this world. Ever.
fdsjlgrdjbvkl,fat43oignjoiht4wiufbndhfewiujgvbdsjkvcdsafgt42efgvdsh321riuewjvbdsfr328ufg9vidbsfiu432bfw (just wanted to do something a little crazy here...)