Sometimes I am afraid that I turn out to be completely crazy haha. Well afraid… I kinda see it as inevitable, since it is already clear now that I´m not normal. I think that I often live life a bit different than others. If I have learned anything from history, it is that everything which is not normal, what we don’t know, is at first labelled “crazy / abnormal”. As a child, I once had a nightmare in which a doctor declared me sick for no reason, so I had to run away from home. I was scared and angry because I wasn’t sick and sad because my parents didn’t believe me. Being chased by my friends on skippyballs at the central station made the dream even more real… well not quite but I still remember the feeling of the dream and the dream very well.

It is such a luxury that this is what worried me as a child. Crazy used to mean that you were taken by the devil. After that crazy people became a scientific project and today they are just “sick” and need treatment or pills. It ain’t the biggest fear of the world. Other children grew up with completely different fears. I don’t have to list all the fears in the world to prove that my fears are luxurious. Everyone watches the news from time to time. Imagine what it is like to have someone’s fear in a war zone? In a country where social security does not exist? In a place where discrimination still emerges (I mean the BLM movement at the moment is there for a reason)? These are fears that really warn and protect us. They keep us alert. Still I wouldn’t wish anyone to live in this fear of course. My point, however, focuses on the luxury fears. I am grateful for my fears, I deal with them and they are not even real. That’s crazy! How many fears play in our heads, unrealistic and a pure luxury to experience! Yet if too much is never a good idea, and anxiety is a serious problem in our society, thanks to our luxury fears.

I am fascinated by our playful thinking. The small fears that sometimes pop up into my head in the forms of questions, worry or shame. The negative ‘What if …?’ questions… I was sitting on a bench today (like just relaxing outside), something I do too little, and just decided to go on the swings on the playground for a while.  Doing my best to be casual, let the child in me flourish. I caught myself looking around whether someone saw me or looked at me, not out of pride cause I felt happy and free just swinging there, but out of a kind of shame or fear. Realising this, I decided to train myself away from these thoughts by keeping on swinging and laughing at everyone who passed by. Where does that shame/fear come from, that crazy fear? An that is just it; ‘crazy fear’, the fear of being abnormal, the fear I started with in this blog. It isn’t marked as normal for me to go alone on the swings… unconscious programmes popped up and produced the shame feeling.

Our ancient brain has not been evolved in filtering unreal fears. It is up to our consciousness to filter what does and doesn’t deserve our attention. I enjoy catching myself in my weird thinking at times, there is no right or wrong in this. There is always an opportunity to test and push myself hahaha, face your fears, right?!