On Being Crazy

I can say with a great deal of confidence that I am not you average normal guy. I do consider myself to be somewhat eccentric. My mother is a first hand witness of this, often chiding me when I was younger (and sometimes she still does) for walking around the yard while having somewhat audible conversations with myself. What I was actually doing was thinking up and narrating stories to myself, have of which I end up deciding are far too disturbing to ever be written down. I unusally introverted and tend to say to most inappropriate things which lead to some very awkward situations. To top it all of, I came across this quote during NaNoWriMo

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia - E.L. Doctorow

I guess that this only adds to my idea that I am in fact, as the old people say, "off my rockers".

Now, when I say that I'm crazy, I don't mean that I'm crazy with some sort of mental illness. Mental illnesses are a sad and serious affair. No, I mean crazy in a social sort of way. People often tell me that I should change now, or risk never being able to interact with normal people. But, it makes me wonder, just exactly how many people consider themselves 'normal'? What exactly is the standard for normal. If everyone is born different and unique, then how could there be a standard for normal?

You see the truth is, everyone is a little crazy, even those people who think that they aren't. Ever since we were able to make social connections, we tend to find people that we have things in common with and befriend them. We replicate this all through out our lives, and it is from this that we judge what's normal or not. To if we are honest with ourselves, we've never met anyone who is exactly like us. Sure, we may have a lot in common with somebody, but we're never exact. And as such, as long as we are ourselves, we'll always be less that normal, which is a good thing. Being 'normal' mean copying someone. When you're crazy, at least you and everyone else in the world knows that you're being yourself.

“Being an author is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum.”
-Graycie Harmon

See you tomorrow!!