🧠 A good idea is a crazy idea

“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”

- Joseph Chilton Pearce

The suspension of judgment makes all the difference in our creative process.

The Greeks had a word “Epoché,” meaning “non-judgment.”

Allowing us to enter that state, wherein we don’t allow ourselves to stop short of our end goals — that is the key to landing in creative insights.

“They called me crazy” has become a trope for a reason.

But the difference between the people who get called crazy and the people who don’t is how safe they play it.

Heck, some of these people could actually be crazy.

Are they going to dismiss the idea first?

Will they throw it out before it even stands trial in the Court of Public Opinion?

That’s the real question that remains to be seen.

The “crazy” people are the disruptors who move us along.

They’re the catalyst that changes everything around it.

They’re the variable that results in massive shifts.

The last time you doodled on a piece of paper, did you ball it up and throw it away before anyone could see it?

Do you keep paintings you do in the back of your closet?

Don’t worry about judgment.

If we’re worried about others’ judgment, it may be that we are judging others to have taste when that may not be the case.

Epoché relates in many ways to mindfulness.

After all, one of the goals of the mindfulness states is to declutter our headspace and allow for perception without judgment.

The normal “mindless” state is typically a torrent of thought without any aim or end.

When we take a moment to step back and enjoy the process, when we perceive the craft, we can then appreciate the insights we stumble upon.

So much of art is accident.

We find the hooks that imbue our work with a unique voice by allowing it to speak back to us without trying to silence it.

Let your work speak to you.

From there, it can speak to others.

And remember — it is your prerogative, privilege, and duty to be called crazy.

Crazy is my bread and butter.