Please Call for My Drool Cup

I’m contemplating going crazy. Not shitting-my-pants, hearing-voices, punching-my-own-reflection crazy, but something in the “imbalanced” region. Slightly off, perhaps, is the appropriate nomenclature. I wouldn’t do it for very long, and I’d have specific goals in mind, like procuring medication, an extended vacation, and lots of sympathy. I wouldn’t go crazy enough to scare anybody, and I’d terminate the project immediately if the benefits didn’t work out exactly as I wanted them. I suppose I wouldn’t be “crazy” at all, insofar as I’d have complete control over my mental state—and I suppose, further, that having pinpoint control over my faculties is the exact opposite of crazy—but I’d fake it really well. Plus, never say never: I wouldn’t object to punching a mirror or two if I had to.

Why feign insanity, you ask (as if drugs and time off aren’t sufficient motivation)? Because I’m curious about how people regard the insane. Movies portray the fissure between sanity and psychosis in various degrees of acceptability, while popular literature aggrandizes psychosis to a larger extent than one might assume is realistic. The dichotomy in how we perceive and categorize the process of going crazy is pronounced: on the one hand, we romanticize it—we associate artistic and academic genius with it, and ally it with great personalities of our time. On the other hand, we think that crazy people are crazy. We don’t think they’re sexy, and we don’t want anyone we know—no matter how brilliant—to become afflicted with imbalance.

There is just one indisputable fact concerning going nuts: it happens. The question of how often it happens, why it happens, and how we classify it is less discernible than the circumstance itself. But is it useful to go crazy? That’s the intriguing, potentially lucrative question—could it spawn a new career, or some efficacious product to which only a fractured mind could give rise? We all know that both Dave Chappelle and Mike Tyson nearly lost their respective careers because of mental illness, but there have been, presumably, world leaders whose own psychotic breaks have vaulted them to power. Travel to a place like Cuba, North Korea, or Iran, and despite any personal or ideological differences you may have with the leadership, you’d have to agree that insanity goes a long way towards ensuring a vice-like rule.

Herein lies the intrigue: would my trajectory more closely resemble Castro or Tyson? Moreover, I don’t think that pretending I'm nuts would hurt the experiment, since empirical evidence indicates that, for some, insanity is partially affected —Tyson and every UFC ultimate fighter being the best examples. They're not as shit nuts as they’d like us to believe. So why can’t I get in on the ruse? Why shouldn’t they share the psychotic glory? Any person willing to risk their personal and professional reputation on a get-rich-quick insanity scheme deserves a piece of the Wellbutrin pie.

So, if you hear about me losing my mind in the next few weeks, don’t be concerned. I’m probably faking it—and if I’m not, at least I’ll be medicated.

Stay on Seroquel, Tyson
DJ Desipramine