I Am Crazy & You Are Crazy & They Are Crazy

Crazy is the human condition. We are not apparently crazy, just crazy when we suspend belief that we are not crazy. Agreement is a major factor in creating the illusion that we are not crazy.
We agree on language. We agree on what is right and wrong. We agree on what is healthy and what is not. We agree on the way we want to be seen, think, and feel. In short, we configure ourselves for others. Anyone who doesn't, becomes separated from the mass agreement on the way to live. In democratic cultures there is more acceptance of differences. In dictatorships it is very risky to be out of agreement with your culture.

So being human is to be in agreement with others and accepting the givens about living. The exceptional people do not agree and we call them creative. If we can identify their creativity, and find a category for it, then whatever it is although it is not like us but accceptable, falls into the condition called creative.We treat it as we do zoo animals and think it is ok to like it. Some of us like it so much we become a part of it. We become creative. The rest of us go about our crazy agreements in our homes, on our highways, and at work.

If we could turn the human upside down and shake out their agreements, leaving only language intact, we would find a mad person lost in a babble of words that we would call insane.

Agreement then equals civilization. If enough people agree on something it becomes true. Punishment for a violation of what a people have come to agree about can be severe. Taking a life when we agree that they have violated one of our agreements becomes capital punishment and can result in a death sentence. A terminally ill person may not be put to death. We have not agreed to it. It is not thought to be a creative.

So as humans we are trapped in a bag of skin and bones with a brain that is trained to conform to the conventions we agree upon in each of our cultures. Our private selves, our soul, is not always in agreement with our public selves.

But that is another question.