Not Crazy

I was talking to a woman several years ago whose child, like my youngest, was on the autism spectrum. Also like me, it was her belief that her children’s sometimes-odd behavior was an expression of suppressed, unreleased potential, not some inherent chemical flaw in their brains. She felt simply prescribing medication wouldn’t serve to release that potential, it would only help manage the behaviors, which were mostly inconvenient to her.

We were both in wholehearted agreement about this, and about how raising these children had better helped us understand ourselves, how our odd behaviors were usually the expression of unreleased potential, that no one is in fact broken, and that we are energetic creatures, not merely flesh and blood machines compelled by random biological forces. “I want to talk to other people about this,” she said, “but what if they don’t believe me? What if they think I’m crazy?”

She wasn’t herself a writer, though she was the wife a pretty famous author, someone whose work she’d seen reach millions of people across the globe. She’d read the reviews that said his most well-known book was no good, was silly, wasn’t real literature. She and he didn’t care because that book just kept selling and selling and selling, and they kept hearing from the people who bought the book saying how much it meant to them.   

Maybe the reviewers who’d said the book was silly thought the millions of people who loved it were crazy. A crazy person, after all, is someone who wholeheartedly believes something that isn’t true. Fortunately, the value of any piece of art is gloriously subjective. What’s truly valuable to one person is worthless to another. I understand the disciplines of science and medicine are an attempt to codify inarguable physical truths, the way gravity pulls us to the earth regardless of what we believe. I also understand that everyone in their own way is searching for some dependable truth that rests on something firmer than the shifting sands of taste and opinion.

But I also think the whole of life is more of an ongoing work of art than is often acknowledged. That mother and I couldn’t really prove our theory about unreleased potential, though it was, to us, the most attractive explanation. If I don’t like a story, I won’t read it, and if I find someone’s theories about life and humanity unattractive, uninspiring, grim, hopeless – then I look elsewhere. I don’t know how else to live. To allow myself to be guided by someone else’s priorities seems crazy, since no one will ever be able to lead my life for me.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com