Talking to the DEAD! What's Crazy, and What Isn't... is Pretty Crazy! (Ulog No. 50)

How many crazy things do we do?

What is crazy, anyway?

Found myself sitting across the desk from a psychiatrist today... no, nothing serious, Mrs. Denmarkguy was just there for a routine check-in concerning her ADHD medication.

But on the way home, we started talking about what we consider "crazy," in our world.

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Crazy ducks on the lake...

And it's some pretty crazy stuff!

Consider this, if someone claims to be hearing the voice of God, we call them "spiritual" or religious.

But if they other voices, we call them schizophrenic and insane!

"Insanity" is a pretty weird thing, if you ask me.

Sometimes I consider the distinct possibility that there really is no such thing as insanity, all there is is a need for people to attach "labels" that vary significantly from their own lenses of perception.

Many people would call someone who claims to see — and talk to — ghosts "insane."

But what do we really know?

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Spring clover

My dear wife was part of a university study many years ago, and one of the things the study revealed was that she was able to (accurately) see things outside the normal spectrum of human visibility... specifically, towards the infrared end of the spectrum. Which potentially made/makes her something called a "tetrachromat," someone who genetically has an extra sensory cell in their retina.

But I digress.

Crazy. People might call Mrs. Denmarkguy "crazy" for claiming to be able to see something a roomful of people otherwise can't see. She manages to "deflect" such assertions by pointing out that she's functionally deaf so her eyesight has overcompensated to make up for it.

Physiologically, that's nonsense, but it puts people at ease.

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Bougainvilleas on the wall

Sometimes, I find myself thinking that "insanity" may merely be a name we give to someone who's ahead of the rest of us, on the evolutionary calendar. We simply lack the tools or skills to measure their experience... in a sense, a very strange "canary in a coalmine" type situation.

Technology moves fast.

Consider this... a lot of things exist, regardless of whether or note we are aware of them. Marconi didn't invent radio waves, he merely measured them. Radio waves have been around for — quite literally — billions of years!

Now consider this: How do you think a bunch of people in the 1600's would respond to you pulling out your iPhone and showing them pictures of your cousin... in Australia?

Witchcraft? Sorcery? Magic?

What if you didn't actually have the iPhone on you... all you could do was describe what you knew to be true? Insanity?

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Rhododendron blossom

With this in mind, what do you think we'll be able to measure in the year 2220, 200 years from now?

Since we are all basically patterns of energy arranged into certain shapes, might it be possible that after a person passes away, some residual photons are still hanging around in some pattern "that used to be my cousin Fred?" Keep in mind the First Law of thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only be transferred or changed from one form to another.

I'm not a "Godly" person, by the way... just a curious one. There is so much we don't understand that relegating the "odd* to the realms of insanity strikes me as disingenuous.

What about people who have had a limb amputated but experience pain/sensations from a "phantom" limb? Are they "nuts," too? Delusional? Or simply experiencing something that's ahead of our ability to detect and interpret it?

Thanks for reading!

(Another #creativecoin creative non-fiction post)

What do YOU think? Is there "more between Heaven and Earth" than we understand? Is "delusion" just reality that hasn't been measured and cataloged yet? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200124 23:02 PST

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This topic of labels has actually been on my mind before.
Humans are only comfortable with our mind can easily process, any other thing is off limits and could even be termed abominable. Many geniuses and people who choose to tinker and study, rather than dismiss as crazy were termed crazy; it's only "logical" that if someone comes out to study the thing that majority have termed crazy then he also must be crazy.

We live in a weird world and I wish you could visit Nigeria sometime, to see what kind of things people would Chuck down to "God", instead of study and try to exploit for positive applications.

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Thanks for your thoughtful comment @belemo!

We learn all the time, and hopefully people — sooner or later — will move forward to follow our knowledge. I think about how people 300 years ago might get suddenly ill and dies... and even "men of science" would declare that it had to be "the work of demons." Then we invented microscopes, and we can see viruses... not demons.

I'm sure Nigeria must be a place of many contrasts... in some ways, time has stood still, and yet that's right next to someone using a mobile. I don't really know West Africa, but I lived in Kenya for a while as a child (1960's) and there were many contrasts then, too.

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Yeah its a different world and honestly, sometimes it feels like people are intentionally ignorant because knowledge is a burden.

Wow, 1960s, you're as old as my parents, in our culture we give reslect to our elders and I appreciate you taking out time to hit me up.
I've tried ti bring my parents to Steem but that's been futile 😄

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It's interesting to me how different cultures treats its senior citizens... here in the US, you are often just considered "no longer useful" when you get older.

You remind me of many years back, trying to convince my mother that a laptop computer would be a good idea, because we could stay in touch via email... but she just never accepted it, and we wrote snail mail letters (between Denmark and the USA) till the day she passed away...

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Yeah, in Nigeria senior citizens are often given preferential treatment and lots of regard, particularly in matters that require intellect and logic. It's a system I appreciate but often question those that over do it. The culture has made lots of people absolutely accepting and even if an elder does or say something wrong, most people won't criticise him/her.

Funny thing, both my parents actually come to Steemit to read my articles and it's always a boost to my confidence when they read it and encourage me. My dad is the most likely to join Steem but that would probably be when he retires in a few years time. My mum is already retired and she's chosen gardening and watching YouTube videos about cooking healthy meals.

I'm just watching them grow old and their mortality comes to mind, it really scares me that they won't be on Earth one day. It's something I'm still struggling to come to terms with. Spoke with mum on the phone about it and she said "it's part of life". Tough words Sir. Tough words to accept 😥

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There is so much we don't understand that relegating the "odd* to the realms of insanity strikes me as disingenuous.

I guess more people should have embedded inside their heads a mixture of a Kirlian High-fps-speed camera before dare to open their big mouths to call 'crazy' to someone. :)

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Now that is really fast... so you can take a picture of my silly words before they actually arrive at their intended destination....

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Undoubtedly brother. :)

Veteran old chaps like us, well deserve give a rest to our worked fingers sometimes, to publicly show our peculiar wise thoughts in the wild, and through just a couple of SloMo Screenshots & Pics earn a few buck$ at least. };)

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Hello @denmarkguy,

Interesting post you got there. Are you implying that someone's madness, may only be a perception that cannot be understood? What if they weren't angry at all? c;

How many opinions do we mistake for fact because we don't see the same way? Your post has me asking a bunch of questions...

...definitely the good kind.

Stay blessed,
@shello

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Hi @shello, nice to "see" you!

I often think that one person's "crazy" can be another person's "perfectly normal." And so we are wise to reserve judgment on how we characterize someone else's actions... because they may very well be acting 100% with their best intentions, given the information they know.

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Hey there @denmarkguy, it's nice to be seen!~ ^_^

I agree, perspective plays an enormous role in one's thoughts, words, and actions. Having different experiences lead to different understandings and beliefs. We truly live in a time where having a different view is okay. What upsets me is when people discriminate against others because they don't agree on their views. Life is about connecting and understanding after all!

"because they may very well be acting 100% with their best intentions, given the information they know."

Absolutely!

Stay blessed,
@shello

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If you deem yourself sane in a world that's completely and utterly insane, it does not augur well at all!

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Indeed, it does not. Of course, I make no claims on sanity!

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I make no claims on sanity!

Phew, that's ok then.

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I think being crazy is acting outside the pattern of normal behavior. Breaking social behavior patterns is sometimes considered madness.

Crazy is not only the one who hears voices, but it also matters what he does with that new perception. Is going to give more attention to those voices than to the physical reality he experiences? If so, you may be considered crazy. If he can live with that without disturbing anyone, maybe nobody even finds out.

Labels are something that is placed from the outside after all. No one knows what goes on in the head of a crazy except the crazy himself.

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I reckon that as long as someone isn't actively harming themselves or other, we can reserve judgment and the need to "label" someone.

At the time, many people thought Leonardo DaVinci was "crazy" because of some of the ideas he had and tried to turn into inventions... many of which actually worked. As you suggest, sometimes we are simply dealing with new perceptions.

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I have an older brother, that I say is a "functioning alcoholic"

He drinks large amounts of alcohol pretty much any day that He does not work his deep mine coal mining job. He went a mile deep to be a "roof bolter" at 18 yrs old.

A job one would have to be "insane" to do.

He is now 55 and a "highly certified mine foreman/electrician." & a "functional alcoholic."

Many people, I being one of them. Are "functioning insane" I think We all have a degree of "insanity."

These voices, or one might say.... "Conscience" can be an asset or a liability.

Uhhhg.... My voice (one of them) is saying, "shut up fool and go to bed, your tired and rambling." It is correct, good night... LoL

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I hear you, brother!

I agree we're all functionally nuts, in one way or another. My mother was a functioning alcoholic... you could gauge her degree of inebriation by the status of her political leanings: When she was sober, she was a liberal, when she was drunk, she was somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun.

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