Life, or something close to it.

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
Am I or are the others crazy"
- Albert Einstein.

Originality. Where can we go to, or what can we do to become original? We are 2009years into the A.D. calendar. Counting the years before that, our civilization has spent more than 2500 years of counted time in this planet. During which it has supported more than a billion lives. A lot more. That’s a lot of different men, women and children wanting to be something. To do something original. And since they had the benefit of being ahead in generation, they did it. Leaving us with no other choice but to redo them. We were born to be followers. Do you want to climb the Mount Everest? It’s been done. Write an epic play about unparalleled love? Been done. Free a nation from tyranny? Done. There really is nothing you can do that hasn’t already been done. Even your thoughts, that you think belong to you, someone's already thought them before. It has already stirred up someone else's grey matter before it did yours. There is no being original in the true sense of the word, but like everything else in life, or like everything else in the world, the meaning we give to originality is also tainted.
To be original, means you should be able to break free from the chains of society and severe the shackles of normalcy. Think for yourself. Everyone has an inspiration. Even following on his/her path, can be considered original, though it itself argues with the definition of being original. Leave conformity. Embrace your inner insanity. Listen to the voice that tells you it’s stupid to do such things, but you should do them anyway. Forget the need to rationalize things. The things we consider normal, are only normal because we've been told they're normal. Who has the right to decide what's normal and what is not? They can tell us what is normal or not, because they have the majority of the votes. But we all know their victory is not unanimous. Be a part of the minority. Enjoy being different, imperfect, crazy. Don’t worry about the world. The only they care about results and outcomes. They will mock you for your stupidity, spit on your endeavors and ridicule your thoughts, till you reach success, and then they'll praise you for your bravery. They are fickle minded morons who can only think what they've been told think, to do what's always been done, and they’ll live and die within the security of their four walls. They are rational, secure, safe, sheltered but a bit too sane. There's a very thin line between insanity and genius. Imagine you have a beautiful wife, a castle for a home, a healthy smart kid for a son, a garage of spectacular vehicles, and a job that has the whole population of the area working under you. All in all, a pretty sweet life. Now imagine leaving all of that, to go live in a jungle! Crazy, right? But turn the clock back a couple of years. Okay, a bit more than a couple of years, the same chain of thoughts weren’t crazy or stupid to Siddhartha Gautama. He left all his possessions and went on a search for answers to questions he couldn't understand. He became Gautama Buddha, the enlightened one, eventually. Stupid, crazy and insane to a genius. The same path that made everyone think he wasn’t all that great in the head, made the same people come to him looking for advice. George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The rational man adapts to fit his environment. The irrational man adapts his environment to fit him. Therefore all progress depends upon the irrational man.”
Shaw also said, “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” Let’s say that the world is not flat, that the earth revolves round the sun. Let’s travel South America on an old motorbike. Let’s say time doesn’t move the same for everyone, that energy and mass are interchangeable. Let’s abolish slavery. Let’s make a metal machine fly in the air while carrying us in it. Let’s fly a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the string. Let’s fight a well equipped, well armed British army with nothing but non-violence. Let’s die for the sins of everyone else. These are just some of the insane thoughts that cropped up in a few brilliant minds. And the moral of the story is stay away from conformity and think for yourself. Break free from all things normal. And let the people brand you the they wish. You know who you are, better than them. Decide what you want. And chase it.
I myself am no adventurer, and this piece of writing seems to be drenched in hypocrisy. But these are just thoughts. And a hypocrite or not, I love to write. Cheers.