Where Is My Mind?

For a very long time now i have been afraid of going crazy, or losing my mind.  Not an explosion of losing my shit and going on some destructive or violent rampage but an implosion.  Collapsing completely into myself to such an extent that i can no longer function in this society.

i find fear to be an awful thing.  Give me depression, give me anger - i can deal with them.  In fact i am quite good at them.  i do not need to go into joy or love or peace, anyone can deal with them.  If i was feeling those feelings i would not be writing here.  Instead i would be off enjoying them.  We do not need to relieve ourselves of happiness, we hold on to it.

But fear... fear grabs ahold of the most vulnerable corners of our souls. It can pull the legs right out from under us and strip away in an instant the confidence it took years to build up.  Fear leaves you with only two choices: run or fight.

i have never been good at running so i am left to the latter.  But how do you fight going crazy?  To quote Rage Against The Machine and hundreds before them, you have to know your enemy.  So i have decided to explore crazy.

What is crazy? In one country eating bugs is crazy while in another street vendors sell them on sticks as snacks.  Is putting metal hoops around your neck to stretch it out crazy?  Depends where you live, in some places it is customary.  Is sitting in your car, stopped in traffic for hours every day for your commute to work crazy?  Well, i bet we can all say yes to that last one but many still do just that every single day.

Crazy just seems to be almost any deviation from what is considered local social norms.  So i am afraid of falling into a state where i no longer can maintain what society expects of me? i am afraid i may lose the ability to make other people feel more comfortable?  i am afraid i might forget all the rules of behavior?

What is causing me to feel like i am going crazy is my daily attempts to try and not act crazy.  Now that is fucking crazy. Calling this a catch 22 does not even begin to explain this bizarre feedback loop of logic. So how do i fight this?  How do i step outside of this circle?

i have decided that i need to do something crazy on a much more frequent basis.  Not fight crazy with crazy or "act" crazy like those pathetic characters in cheesy commercials who think they are original by jumping into a fountain on a hot summer day.  No, i need to do things that are more true to myself even if they may be perceived as crazy.  i need to speak my mind more often.  i need to express my feelings more often. i need to say no to things that i do not really want to do more often.

In our society these things have become crazy, but i find myself wondering if i could possibly do anything more human.  Sure, others may think of me as a bit crazy ( i am sure many already do) but i will feel much less like i may actually go crazy.  So, in order to face my fears i need to stay true.  True to who i am.  True to what i believe.

i think in order to stay sane we need to all be a little more crazy.