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Recently, I’ve been, surprisingly often, asked if I wasn’t ever afraid of going crazy (losing my mind), or if I am maybe not already beyond that point. Usually, this question followed a conversation about the nature of reality with a fairly open-minded individual.
Sure, from the consensual reality perspective, I could be seen as crazy (don’t worry, not the street bum kind of crazy). After all, I claim that nothing exists the way we think it does, which includes the non-existence of me, you, he, she, we, they, or any other personal pronoun you can come up with. Furthermore, from my perspective, most other people are crazy (which doesn’t include all people because some share my view). And even crazier is that all the crazy people don’t even exist but fervently believe they do. Isn’t that crazy?
For the crazy people, all of this would probably be another point of evidence that I’m the crazy one.
So, on the one side, we have the kind of craziness that comes with waking up to what and where you really are. And on the other side, we have the (let’s just, in the spirit of Thoreau, call it) mass of men’s kind of craziness which is basically the default state in which each of us is at some point in our lives.
Let’s look at the difference and determine whether one kind might be preferable to the other.
How Crazy Are You?
The mass of men’s kind of craziness consists of a comatose existence where nothing is ever seriously questioned, a place under the sun needs to be fought for, everything is serious and important, and life is full of struggle and suffering.
The dangling carrot here is the hope of settling or arriving somewhere. All you need is to struggle for long enough and eventually, hopefully, you’ll arrive at this magical somewhere.
To me, this is obviously crazy (perhaps insane is a better word). And the crazy thing about this kind of craziness is that it’s the norm.
I know how crazy this existence is because I’ve been there, and now, I’m no longer there. Now, that I’m in this other (better) kind of craziness, which I would call raving sanity, I can clearly see how crazy I used to be.
In this new craziness (sanity), the world isn’t material, nothing is personal, everything I see is I, nothing matters, and life is simple.
Yeah, I get why this might sound crazy.
But that’s not even all. Realizing these things restructures everything. Nothing works like before. You become the only authority in your life (it’s all you) and your navigation through life changes from conditioned thinking to pattern recognition where thought becomes obsolete.
And do you want to know something else that’s crazy about the good kind of craziness? Your life will be effortless even if from the outside it looks like shit is hitting the fan.
Suddenly, you no longer worry much about anything and people will label you crazy for that. Now isn’t that crazy?
Another crazy thing about the mass of men’s craziness is that it comes with the belief that all this striving, yearning, struggling, and suffering is what life is and there is nothing to do about it. So, it’s best to just accept the comatose existence because that’s the only way.
Well, it’s not.
But you have to venture down a road where you probably won’t have a lot of company.
The Journey to Sanity
If you’re reading this and these words stir something in you, then you might be further down the road than you actually think. The general discontent about the common way of things is ready to take you on a journey. As soon as this journey takes hold of you you better buckle up. There is nothing you can do and any resistance is futile. Let surrender be your mantra.
If you’re afraid you might go crazy through this whole questioning reality business, I’d like to invite you to try something.
Carefully look at your own life and the lives of the people around you. Take a look at these lives from an emotionally detached perspective. See all the vanity, struggle, confusion, and unhappiness that is the norm for virtually everyone. Ten minutes of honest reflection should be enough to start seeing the craziness of it all.
You might also look at society as a whole and see how crazy that is. I remember reading somewhere that it’s not an accomplishment to be well-adjusted to a sick society. That is well said. And yet, most of us live as if being well-adjusted to all that craziness is the goal.
If the whole place is crazy, then isn’t being crazy the only sane reaction?
Also, another part of the mass of men’s kind of craziness is that you think you’re sane. That’s a crucial point. When you’re this kind of crazy, you don’t know it.
So what if the feeling of going crazy is actually a going sane? In all honesty, when you observe your mental content for a day do you get the feeling that what’s going on up there is sane?
Anyway, the craziness/sanity that will be in place when you figure out what and where you are is a paradigm shift from the mass of men’s craziness/insanity.
These paradigms have nothing in common. Comparing the two would be like comparing teleportation to crawling in the mud as a means of transportation. The mud crawlers will call the teleporter crazy when he tries to remind them that they too are teleporters. In the end, the teleporter will shake his head in disbelief and go about his business.
Is there really a debate about what the more efficient mode of transportation is?
When you remember that you’re a teleporter, you might initially have difficulty relating to the mud crawlers. Don’t fret. Take your time to learn how everything works. This is like discovering that you have another sense you have neither used nor known about and which now becomes the predominant sense in your life.
I know, this might sound narcissistic and derogative, as if I’m so much more developed than others, but that’s not the point here. This has nothing to do with being special or better than others. The point here is not that most people are mud crawlers but that most people believe they are while they really are teleporters.
And before anyone says it, this is not a belief thing. This is a get-rid-of-all-belief-and-then-see-what-‘s-up thing.
This whole thing is about you and your life. So you might want to figure out what the heck is going on before it’s too late.
Luka
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