You're Crazy

You’re crazy. I feel like I can say that with some measure of confidence because we’re all crazy now. Whatever your religion, politics, IQ, allegiance or alliance, you’re now a nutjob. Irrationality has become the norm, insanity the default. It’s not your fault. Insanity is a rational response to a world which, by the day, makes everless sense. The world is so nutso, in fact, that “everless” isn’t even a word*. How does that make sense?

Consider climate change for a hot sec. The rational mind would have addressed this issue in the 1970’s when it first trickled into the public consciousness (although some scientists were warning about it as early as the 1950’s). But we didn’t do anything, preferring to let the planet warm and warm until now when it’s too late to do much about it beyond breaking out the sunblock and waiting for the oceans to take us.

So what does one do? Some choose to become doomsayers, some choose to deny or ignore the problem, some take the conspiracist route, believing that governments are seeding the skies with chemicals to control the weather, reduce the population, or maybe put the covid vaccine into the rain. I used to think the chemtrail people were out of their minds. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that, but I no longer think they’re any crazier than the rest of us.

Whee!

It would be bad enough if all we had to worry about was the imminent collapse of the environment, but that’s only one of the many straws stirring the drink. There’s lots of stuff with which to contend: war, the rise of domestic neo-fascism, technological dystopianism (also not a word), and the WNBA’s treatment of Caitlin Clark.

Plus, there was also a global pandemic a couple years ago, but whatevs.

No wonder people are acting bananas. No wonder depression and anxiety are rising with the mercury. No wonder so many of the world’s white women have molted into Karens. No wonder more and more Americans are turning to cheap highs and looking for an easy way out; suicide rates are up, life expectancy down. No wonder – and I mean this sincerely – millions of Americans are turning to a man so eminently unfit to serve in the office of the presidency that 40 of his 44 previous cabinet secretaries have said they will not support him.

They turn to Trump not because they honestly expect him to fix anything, but because everything already feels so broken that they figure they might as well let him finish the job. Those of us still clinging to our few remaining wits see chaos as the problem – his supporters see it as the solution. And I can’t say they’re wrong. I mean, yes, they’re obviously wrong but I understand why somebody would believe that’s everything’s so twisted we need to blow it all up.

We all have our pet theories as to why things went so sideways. I’m not trying to litigate that now, only to acknowledge that large majorities agree things are heading in the wrong direction, but nobody can agree on why or what to do about it.

Lefties like me blame the right and the right blames lefties like me. The younger generations blame the older while the older generations shrug and go, “Not my problem anymore.” Global fractures are becoming more pronounced, not less. Cultural issues are being manipulated for the empowerment of the oligarchs increasingly running that globe. And the vast majority of us are left bumping along the ride going, “Wheeeee!”

All of that to say that being crazy isn’t so bad. My personal insanity has manifested itself in all sorts of ways, some of them quite fun. Moving to Savannah, then blowing off Savannah for Europe for six months last year, going all-in on UFOs. That’s how I’ve been coping. Most of these actions don’t make much sense on their surface, but beneath the surface they also don’t make much sense. Yet I’m grateful for having thrown my previous caution out with the bathwater because my life, in an odd way, feels richer now, even as I understand it less. I guess life is always a little sweeter the more tenuous it feels.

Losing the thread also allows for people to tug on new threads. A good way to deal with anxiety is to focus the mind on a new task or on acquiring a new skill. People say, “Michael, how did you become a top-ranked competitive flamenco dancer?” I always wink at them and say the same thing: “Crippling anxiety.”

So, I don’t know. The more weirdness I see out there, the more I feel like I understand it. We really are living in unprecedented times. Humanity has never had to deal with the vast amount of bullshit with which it’s faced right now. Just epic amounts of liquified bullshit in which we find ourselves drowning. Bugging out now and again feels totally justified.

I’m judging people less harshly than maybe I did before. Don’t get me wrong, not that much less, but I’m at least trying to take a moment to ask, “Is this person maybe not a total racist and/or douchebag and/or lunatic, but just somebody having a bad day?” A lot of the times the answer is, no they truly are a total fucking racist and/or douchebag and/or lunatic, but a lot of the times – most of the time - I think we owe people better. In a world of everless grace, may we each find it within ourselves to offer evermore.

*While “everless” is not a word, I did learn that it was the title of a best-selling YA novel by Sarah Holland.