Here’s to the crazy ones

An article by The Ranting Dream    No Comments

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?…While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Jack Kerouac [note that this piece is erroneously attributed to Steve Jobs and/or Apple Computers - while Apple used this in an ad they created in 1997, neither Apple nor Steve Jobs were the original authors of this piece]

For many of us on this planet – who choose to dwell in an existence riddled with fear, superstition, prejudice, envy, bigotry, misguided beliefs, and more fear – the crazy ones scare us…offend us…make us uncomfortable…

Why???

Because these crazy ones challenge the very premise on which we’ve chosen to build our legacies…they shake the foundation of our meaningless, mundane routine of an existence…they question our unwillingess to accept change…they force us to reflect on the purpose of our existence…and most importantly, they refuse to be afraid…What blasphemy!!! – even ‘god’ is to be ‘feared‘ (according to the many dogmata out there that continue to rake in huge profits by making sure we never forget to be ‘afraid’ of all things known and unknown even for a moment) – how dare these misfits refuse to be afraid???

In case you’ve not clued in yet, in my humble opinion, the primary reason why we’re unable to relate to the crazy misfits out there is because we’re too afraid of everyone and everything…

Fear taints the quality of our thoughts, beliefs, actions, and words…

Fear manipulates our perceptions, halts creativity, and forces us to adopt regressive attitudes…

I’ve ranted on fear before, so I won’t dwell on that – but I will assert that if we, as a species, even for a moment, refused to be afraid; we would begin to realize how perfect everything really is…as imperfect as I shall remain for the rest of my existence in this physical form, the day I started making sense to myself is the day I chose to stop being afraid; the day I chose to defy the status quo – and the wonderful experience continues – with each moment, I stumble upon a new and exciting reality – and with each day, I find myself less and less afraid – and the ‘crazy misfits‘ don’t seem all that crazy anymore…

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: am I or are the others crazy?” – Albert Einstein

Here’s to the crazy ones…

- RD