Recently, I was asked if I’ve ever done anything that other people thought was “crazy.” Crazy is not a word in my lexicon. I don’t really know what it means. But I became thoughtful about the question for a few minutes and this is what came to mind.
Who knows if my acts were sane or crazy? “Aye, there’s the rub.” Most of those out-on-a-limb moves, happenings, challenges and changes are risk-taking, out of the ordinary and probably a little of both. What I do know is that my own different life beats have always been to my own drummer, and that’s both scary and exhilarating. Sane? Crazy? Who knows? I’m a well-respected “shrink,” author and media personality who's supposed to know. However, the longer I live, the more I Sage, the less I know how to judge certain behaviors. I don’t believe we really know how to judge these kinds of acts until time has passed and we know what we’ve done with the results of our experience. It’s in the looking back and telling our story that we evaluate our own life pattern.
Two times specifically come to mind. The first was after my home burned and I experienced a number of other personal tragedies in a three week period of time. After a period of hardship, off I went, traveling around the world, seeking something (what?), living in India, returning to India and adopting 2 Indian children. (There’s more to the story of course.)
The other time is now. I decided to become a voice for change in America. I learned how to confront a computer, wrote books, started a website and then started a major e-zine to launch this New Year's Eve that extols Saging instead of Aging. This last venture may be totally nuts or a success, either, neither or both. I do know it’s about one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The outcome is still uncertain. Crazy? Maybe. And maybe just crazy enough to work for me.
This is really about vacation and reality. When I’m away, I usually leave a means of contacting me in case of family emergency. Thus, far away from my east coast time zone, my cell phone rang at 4:00 AM Maui time to a reporter’s questions about Senator Craig’s psychological make-up. Personally, I don’t care about a politician’s personal life. Nor do I believe media should hold as much power as they do over a public individual’s life. However, in our current media-oriented society where every story is milked to its fullest, talking about someone’s dynamics interests me far more than any judgment.
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