Crazy is as Crazy Does

This is such an obvious title, that it sounds like one I would have written before! It shouldn’t be any surprise – yes, I’m crazy! Quite sporadically, sometimes regularly, just off-the-rails crazy!! Well, it depends who you talk to, I guess. I don’t like the term “normal”, as that’s a line I’ve spent years veering far away from. But it’s not quite being “unnormal” that makes me crazy. What makes me appear “crazy” is my attitude towards life – life is for living!

Now, see, I don’t like taking uncertain risks. I’m not into doing really stupid things, like climbing a really tall building, jumping off without any support, and yelling ‘YOLO!’ No, that’s not quite the sort of “crazy” I mean. I do take risks, I do go out to a new pub when I don’t feel like going out, when I’d rather lock myself away and cry. I’ve gone out, met new people, likeminded people, people who don’t mind my sort of crazy. I take risks by venturing into new territories, attempting new things, trying new foods, spending a little bit too much at Christmas because I want to get the people I care about nice things, pushing myself slightly out of my comfort zone now and then. But these are things that a lot of people do, right? These are things that wouldn’t be classified as crazily adventurous.

But, aha! Here we come to it! I'm an introvert. I'm a depressive. These may be things that many people do, but they are really tough for me. So how do I approach these things? How do I go about in these ventures, these occasional nights out, buying (I hope) interesting gifts, pushing myself forward? Well, that’s the really tough part, especially for depressive introverts like me. That’s where I let people see the real me.

It’s not an easy thing to do, to go out without any “protection”, aka without a “mask” on, without pretending to be someone else. I did that for many years. I used to try to fit into crowds where I didn’t belong, tried to “pretend” that I belonged, because I didn’t want to be alone, as I was tired and sad from locking myself away from people. I learnt the hard way that that doesn’t work. People know that you’re not one of them, that you're different. Whatever you do, whatever you try, you stick out. So, I changed. I started wearing the clothes I wanted to, without caring what people thought. I started doing things my way, going to the places where I wanted to be. But whenever you have to start again, do that for the first time, then you are truly exposed. People who see you on your own, dancing without a care, letting yourself go free to the music, they don’t know what to make of you. You are the “strange” one, as you let yourself just be, you show parts of yourself that many people keep hidden. Ah, to be truly free, to be a true free being, one of the first things you have to do is to care less what other people think. That is, perhaps, one of the hardest blocks to ever let lose. But, as soon as people see your real self, the hidden one, then you find out who your true friends are.

But there’s another step. Finding someone like you to share your life with. If you find that person, what do you do? Well, you strip away all layers, including the dark ones that you still keep hidden. You let yourself be as free, wild and crazy as you want to be. From flashing underwear, because you realise that we all just have a body underneath, to wearing crazy clothes, to pulling stupid faces, to food fights, to… There are so many innocent levels of crazy! Kids can do it, so why can’t we as adults? Yet, ‘you must be drunk, mad, to do that!’ But the innocence of kids is still praised, the freedom of expression which many of us lose in adult life.

I don’t need any alcohol to let out my “inner child”. I want to live free, to be able to express myself in any manner I want to. Yes, within reason, always within reason! I care about people, so I don’t do anything that would deliberately hurt another. It is my caring, my heart, that allows me to be adventurous in choosing gifts others may not think of. But in a world which fights harder to suppress anything people do, simple innocent crazy becomes more important.

Let your innocence, that inner child, run free. As long as no one is getting hurt, as long as you’re not doing something fantastically stupid, what’s the harm? You are free.

Am I a Follower, or a Free Thinker?

I think that it’s always been hard to say whether the path we follow is truly our own or shaped for us, especially in this modern world of social media and media frenzy. So much of what we do and say is affected by the world around us, from popular posts shared on sites like Facebook, to the daily news. Too many people just follow all the information blindly, without thinking about what lies behind it, where the truth really is. I’ve always believed that, in choosing which information to accept or to investigate further and which to disregard, that I am exercising free thought and not following the crowd. Yet, perhaps out of a need to feel like I belong, I still find myself falling into “group patterns” and following and accepting most of what these groups have to say. Does that make me just another follower, too?

Whilst I can lead, I don’t see myself as a leader. There are times when I don’t mind being in the spotlight, when I feel the need to be visible (and sometimes I’m visible when I’m less inclined to be, simply because of the fact that I don’t care anymore what people think and don’t hide most of who I am). There are other times when I shun the spotlight, hide away indoors, where people can only see or find me if they know where to look. Throughout my life, I’ve adapted my ideas and beliefs as I’ve grown older and have learnt more about the world, change being one of the most inevitable parts of life. In some ways I have become more defined, in others I have simply shifted one niche for another, always going and arriving at where I feel most comfortable. Who I am now has taken years to develop, a lifetime. Yet I still wonder at times whether it was simply an accident that I arrived at where I am now, or how much the outside world has had an influence upon those decisions.

For those that believe in predestiny, we do not make any free choices at all, as everything is already mapped out for us. I do admit that I partly believe in predestiny myself, that we choose before we are born what sort of life we are going to lead, but that not everything is fixed, that we still have some choices along the way in how to reach that final destination. But then I also look at other things in my life, from my fears to my hobbies. I grew up in a family that crafted, so I still craft myself today, even if it’s not always in the same way that I grew up with. I grew up in a menagerie of animals, with the first pets in our household being cats. I have two cats myself today. I shunned Christian beliefs after bad experiences and turned to other beliefs that called more to my soul, yet I still have minor fears now and then today because of some of the things I was taught during the time that my family took me along with them to church. And yet…

And yet, I do not follow the news on a regular basis, as I know how easy it is to get caught up in the fearmongering that is encouraged by all the mostly negative news bulletins. As a teenager, once I broke away from the fold, I started following my own way more, eventually (after a period of stubborn immovability) becoming more accepting and adaptable to the ideas of others. After learning from experience, I try to promote positive ideals more, rather than encouraging the endless stream of negative information that most of us see or hear on a daily basis. I am becoming who I believe I want to be, rather than letting others dictate to me how I should be. And yet…

And yet I still get caught up in the fear from time to time, perhaps out of sheer human weakness. And I still fear that, because of my acceptance and adaptability, no matter how many see me as a unique individual, that the path I’m following isn’t as much my own as I might believe. Whether it be predestiny, or external stimuli from those around us, we are all a product of the world we live in, whether we like it or not. Perhaps, in that respect, whilst those of us with good intentions can’t forgive or excuse, it is possible to understand extremists. For good or bad, those few are still following the voice that shouts the loudest to them, just like the majority of the rest of us, trying to make sense of the chaos that is the world around us.

Fickle

Sometimes I don't know who I am or what I'm doing. It can be quite hard to choose a direction and stick to it. It's not that I don't completely have a direction to head into; it's just that I don't always know if it's the right thing to do overall, or even for me.

It's because I'm so changeable – I’ve always been like that. It makes it very hard to settle down or to fix myself to any given point in time. Sometimes I don't know if I'm making these decisions on a whim or if it's something I really want for myself. There are some things I enjoy more than others, things that are less changeable, but does that mean I'll stick with them? Not always, as I don't always believe in myself, believe myself capable. There are people I absolutely adore for the moment, but does that mean I won't drive them off, think that they don't really like me or are even just using me?

Yes there are some constants, but... It's hard to settle myself down, even when I want to. And stick to it. I've done a lot of running when things haven't gone my way, too, terrified of consequences that often only I can see.

But I am changing.

I'm starting to think more before my actions; unless something panics me to move (so I become less in control of my actions), I try to think things through before making any move or decision. Sometimes things will appear a lot less severe later on or an idea seems less worth following through (as in, saving myself from doing something stupid). Hindsight is wonderful; foresight is better. It makes it far easier in this way to face up to things when they do go wrong, so I feel that there is less need for me to run. Sometimes I still want to run despite this, but it's something that I've also been controlling a lot more recently, as I know running away from a problem only makes it worse and harder to face up to in the long run.

With all that in mind, I've started trying to set myself up as a realist, balancing out every opinion to find a sensible middle. It's very hard, as sometimes it can take weeks of thinking to form my own opinion on a subject, but it's far better than a knee-jerk reaction any day.

Although it doesn't stop that from happening; when highly emotional I can easily still react out of hand, but I do try nowadays a lot more to control it and not take it so far as I used to.

Trouble is, despite the negative sides to it, it also has positives. Creativity, for instance. If it wasn’t for my highly-active imagination and changeable nature, I don’t believe I would be able to do as many of the creative things that I do. Yes, a lot of my projects end up being shelved for some time, because of how I am. But I do have 2 main creative stays, which I stick to constantly. It drives me, keeps me going, keeps me sane. Means that once I’m over the worst of a highly-emotional period, I can put the recovery process to very good use.

But, anyhow. Whilst I have an excuse for my fickle and changeable nature, I guess we are all that way to some extent. It’s just that, unfortunately, it shows up more in me than in many others. And many people, including myself, end up getting hurt because of it.