6 Brilliant Lessons From Embracing a Little Madness

Do you guys remember when the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland said: We’re all mad here? Or, when we met the mad hatter?

Something about them made me so wonderfully uncomfortable. It’s like coming face to face with your weirdest and worst thoughts. If civil society wasn’t governed by so many unspoken rules, how many of us would turn into the mad hatter?

Can you imagine a world of Cheshire Cats and Edgar Allan Poe’s? Would certainly make things interesting.

We love madness even if we won’t admit it. In movies and books, its characters with the darkest minds we’re entranced by. The madder they are the more of a cult following they garner.

Because it forces us to confront some of our own madness. And since it’s fictional, we allow ourselves to let go a little (serial killer podcasts anyone?).

Anyway, I did something completely mad.

When 2020 began, I was all set to start a fast-tracked program at a graduate school on a full scholarship. I was riding high on a slightly inflated ego and the endless doors this opportunity would open.

The global pandemic had other plans. I was spiraling.

I think it’s the little things that drive us mad slowly. Just 6 months ago, I was a broke fresh grad and honors year drop-out living with her parents. It was as low as I could get.

Then the little mad part of my brain made a decision, and I let it.

As a result — I’m putting a down payment for my first apartment at only 23 and getting ready to move to Europe as soon as the world calms down a little (hopefully).

Since embracing my madness bore so much fruit in such a short time, it is now my favorite advice to give. Check out some of the ways I think you guys can join me over in Wonderland.

The role of pain in madness

“There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.” — Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Escapism is a tale as old as time.

When the world around you is on fire, reality is anything but comforting.

We’ve seen it in some of the greatest and maddest minds of history. Isaac Newton suffered from manic episodes followed by periods of prolonged depression where he saw hallucinations.

Nikola Tesla was a literal mad scientist who built over 200 inventions and claimed to be in contact with intelligence on planet Venus. Do I really need to say anything about Poe?

It’s almost like greatness is synonymous with pain and eventual madness. My guess is, having a great mind can get incredibly lonely.

So, turn to a life of madness. They decided to turn their pain into the inventions and eloquent words that will continue to shape generations long after all of us are gone.

What you can do:

Turn your pain into strength. Especially during this pandemic. Use your losses to fuel your greatness.

It’s tempting to bury it all and lock it up in the deepest parts of our minds. But it does no one any good there. Least of all you. These things have a way of catching up to us eventually.

This way — you get to control the narrative. More than that, you might just be able to use it to go beyond anything you’ve experienced before. One of my favorite things to do is make a list of all the things that made me angry or sad this week.

Then, I either write about it or challenge myself to try and fix one of the things on that list so I’m no longer sad or angry the next week. It’s a small thing, but over time it has improved my quality of life in so many ways.

Do I still get angry and sad? Yes! But I am so much more conscious of my negative emotions which allows me to control how I choose to react to something.

The freedom of madness

“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.”― Kahlil Gibran, The Madman

Today, more than ever, we’re trapped into versions of the people we must portray to exist within society. To differ from the norm is to be ostracized.

We’ve created labels to group people into neat little columns our minds can comprehend. And what of those who don’t fit a single label?

They’ve had to have a mask obscuring their true features long before the pandemic. Yet, there is freedom to be found in not conforming. To do what isn’t expected of you.

Madness is supposed to be unexpected and freeing.

What you can do:

You’d be mad to reject the roles society has assigned you — which is exactly why you must do it. Imagine a world where you don’t have to explain yourself to make others comfortable.

It’s funny how “mad” or “crazy” are labels we’ve invented for times when something shakes our beliefs. When I was in high school, I was suffering from depression and self-harm.

Of course, no one really knew. But there was a part of me (maybe the mad one) that wanted someone to know. Maybe I just wanted attention or maybe I was looking for a hand to pull me out of my downward spiral.

In English class, we were asked to write an essay and I don’t remember what it was about. But I ended up telling the story of a girl with body dysmorphia issues who self-harmed and entertained suicidal ideation until she eventually gets locked up in an asylum.

Very on the nose, I know.

My mom got a phone call that day and I earned myself a new label: attention whore. High school was fun.

Because suicidal people aren’t supposed to want to talk about it. If you’re really suicidal, why would you give people a chance to stop you? If they’re open about their struggles, it’s just for attention. I can think of better ways to get attention, can’t you?

The point is, we all have this notion in our heads about how things are supposed to be and the ways we must behave. Just think of how much you’d accomplish if you shed those expectations.

You’d have the courage to do things you never could before. Quit your uninspiring job and move to a beach in Thailand and try skinny dipping for the very first time. Or whatever else tickles your fancy.

My advice to you: pick one thing you really want to do but haven’t because of what people might say and go do it.

It’s only a quirk, not madness

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.”― Edgar Allan Poe

There was no way I was writing this piece without a quote by Poe himself. My favorite mad man.

In Big Bang Theory, there’s a few instances throughout the show where Sheldon says or does something…questionable in front of a stranger. And before anyone can call him crazy or mad — his friends usually quip: we prefer to say quirky.

Quirky is a fun word. I love the word quirky. My friends call me quirky too. Although, I’m definitely not a genius who’s gonna win a Nobel prize someday.

But there is something to be said about the associations we make. People see a neurodivergent kid who struggles to speak but can probably give a math professor a run for his money and think hmm that poor kid.

There was this boy in my class, senior year of high school. He was “quirky” too. Students loved to give him hell for it. He ended up with a full-ride scholarship to study chemical engineering at the best university in the country while many of the students who used to tease him ended up college dropouts.

Somehow, I don’t think he was the poor kid.

I’m neurodivergent. Which makes me prone to the occasional overstimulation that leads to panic attacks and possible manic episodes. They were especially bad in high school. My ADHD means focusing on most tasks is a lot harder than just sitting down and getting the job done.

Naturally, I wasn’t very good with the whole homework thing. Which led to most of my peers and teachers deciding I’d be a failure in life.

It didn’t matter that I was a straight-A student or the fact that I can literally recite my science textbook from fourth grade to this day. I daydreamed in class too much and was lazy cause I’d never hand in my homework.

It wasn’t success behavior.

Flash forward a few years and I’m the only student from my year with her own business and keeping her head above water through the pandemic.

What you can do:

That last bit wasn’t a brag (okay, a little bragging). Just an example of how we love to write people off because of their “quirks”.

I only managed to start my own business because I wasn’t busy trying to do what everyone else was doing. I already had the quirky label — might as well live up to it.

From a young age, we’re taught to work hard, study hard, get a stable job, get married, have kids, and finally retire having lived a full life. No problem with the plan. If those are your life checkboxes, by all means, go right ahead!

What if you want to buy a van, deck it up, and just live the nomad lifestyle? Or maybe like me, you plan to move to a new country every 3 to 4 months. Doesn’t exactly fit the layout of the last plan.

It’s terrifying breaking away from what we’re taught is the path to success.

It’s almost…madness. You’re staking your future on a plan that offers no guarantee. To that I say — my job feels a lot more secure than my friends who were sacked in the pandemic from their supposedly stable jobs.

I know I’m not gonna fire me.

Make yourself uncomfortable and go after what you truly want. If nothing else, you’ll learn some of life’s most invaluable lessons.

The precarious balance of madness

“It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed”― Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

One of the most telling traits of madness is being a little eccentric.

This is usually seen in how so many of the great mad minds go through periods of mania where they get a shit ton of work done and then their depressive episodes where it was nothing but self-destructive behavior.

Or the whole “work hard play hard” narrative. Most of the greats are known for drinking themselves into stupors or throwing wild parties.

It was probably just the madness. But what if they knew something we didn’t?

What you can do:

Take a breath. Even Newton couldn’t keep churning out one good idea after the other before his own mind forced him to take a beat.

The world moves at a speed beyond human comprehension today. And we’re obsessed with keeping up. It can be work, news, or anything in between — we just don’t know when to quit.

It’s well past 3 am for me, yet here I am writing about madness. Maybe I should take my own advice.

Remind yourself you have time even when it doesn’t feel like it. Don’t forget that there is a balance to everything. I’m not saying drink yourself to death and unwind, but a little R&R never hurt anyone.

At least with madness comes love

“Love that is not madness is not love.” — Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Honestly, love has always seemed mad to me. All sorts of love. From a parent who would take their own life if it meant protecting their child to people sacrificing their lifelong dreams for the sake of a partner.

Love is one of the biggest reasons I think the whole world is just a little mad. In international relations, we learn about realism. The main argument is that humans are inherently selfish creatures.

Of course, many schools of thought oppose this generalization of people. But seeing how we’ve handled and continue to deal with the pandemic has only turned me into more of a realist.

Humans are selfish. That is my view of what is normative. So then, this selflessness for love just seems absolutely bonkers. This reminded me of another quote:

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane.”― Akira Kurosawa

Which is basically to say that love has made us all mad and if we’re all mad — does that mean madness is sanity?

What you can do:

Love is passion. And passion goes beyond the love we feel for other people. You can be passionate about your job. A hobby even.

But most of us don’t really do what we’re passionate about, do we? If we do, we never see it as being more important than the “practical stuff” that brings in money.

As a very money-obsessed 24 year old — I get it. Having been financially unstable and looking at the medical bills that pile up at the end of the month, I am well aware the pursuit of money isn’t optional for most of us.

Wanna hear the kicker though? I only started making money when I stopped working only for the money. The way I see it, there are two ways to go about it.

Either, find passion in what you already do and turn work into something that is both part of your hobby and livelihood or get a hobby. Do something that gives you no monetary gain whatsoever.

For me, it’s writing my very first YA/NA Novel. Chances are, no one is ever going to read it. But I love writing it anyway. And because I give myself that creative outlet, I don’t despise the work-related writing I have to do, the way I once did.

Even if it’s just 10 minutes out of your day, just do it.

Madness is without judgment

“Humans, as a rule, don’t like mad people unless they are good at painting, and only then once they are dead.”― Matt Haig, The Humans

Judgments are sentences we thrust upon others based on our biased beliefs of what is acceptable. We’ve already established that mad people adhere to no such rules.

Then it is reasonable to argue that they do not judge. Or at the very least, they are least likely to judge. But the average person does love to judge.

What you can do:

Don’t judge. Seems like a no-brainer. Most of us can avoid overt judgment based on pure decency.

What about subtler judgment calls we make throughout the day. It’s stuff like automatically sorting a stranger into attractive or unattractive or deciding someone is a little “off” because they’re not like you.

We use judgment to make sense of the world. But mad people aren’t trying to make sense of the world. And we should really try it sometimes.

The world doesn’t make sense, yet we exhaust ourselves performing within it hoping tomorrow you’ll learn a little more about what makes the world turn. We analyze what successful people before us have done and judge those actions so we may use them for ourselves.

The truth is, you could implement every action and decision someone has made, into your life and wind up a million miles away from where they’re at. You’ll literally drive yourself insane trying to figure out why.

So, just don’t.

I am by no means mad enough to be the next great mind in history. I am, however, just mad enough to enjoy life and so should you. Besides, sanity is overrated.