Crazy

What is crazy anyways? Isn’t it just something out of the ordinary, something that quite doesn’t fit the available sizes? You might argue that crazy is a state of mind, a mental deficit of sorts, where your thinking is just not in tune with the thinking around you. If that is your argument, then you are right, it is a state of mind and the thinking is not in tune, but it is definitely not a mental deficit.

We usually look down upon the crazy, thinking of them as poor souls at best and total nutjobs at worst. We think of people who do things quite differently as the glove that is useless as it doesn’t fit either hand.

I am not talking about being out of line just to be out line. Crazy is not walking down the street on your hands just because no one else is doing that. By out of line I mean the kind of out-of-line Jinnah was. The kind of crazy that Iqbal was. The kind of out-of-tune like Bob Dylan perhaps (on more than one level).

For example, do you think any sane person would argue that although we are a minority, we really should have our own nation-state? You do know that during Jinnah’s struggle for Pakistan, sanity did prevail and after being disgusted at the inherent incompatibility between the then Hindu majority and the Muslim minority, he left for England to practice law. The sane side of him told him the ‘ground realities’ perhaps? “The imperial British would not give in that easy, and to top it off, the Hindu Congress really is not gelling with the whole Unity thing, so better give it up now before you go down in history as an also-ran and do something more concrete, like work”. I wonder if the map of the world would be what it is right now, had not Iqbal – himself crazy to the hilt – flown to London to talk Jinnah’s sanity out of him.

Crazy is good. Be crazy. Sane people get degrees to get a job. They spend their lives filling a prerequisite to success. So, what is the prerequisite to changing the world? An MBA?

All of the above, chances are, sounds idealistic or plain wrong to you. It is alright, you do not belong to the crazy land. You should be happy. The crazy land is filled with, well, crazy people. And it would take one to know one.

Next time a crazy idea seems over-the-head for you, it probably is; and that is exactly why you should go for it.

What I talk of, it makes sense? Do you know of crazy? Or is it just me? Let me know in the comments section