Where’s the Room for the Crazy?

“A man decides after seventy years

That what he goes there for, is to unlock the door

While those around him criticize and sleep

And through a fractal on a breaking wall

I see you my friend, and touch your face again

Miracles will happen as we trip

But we’re never gonna survive, unless

We get a little crazy.”

— Crazy by Seal (1990)

I recently caught Elon Musk’s chat with Joe Rogan on his podcast. I love the format for its no frills, no BS, free flowing discussion that goes deep and wide.

Just listening to the first 10 mins told me I was listening to someone with a very different view of how the world works. Here’s an example — when talking about his vision of building underground tunnels as a way to reduce congestion, he said he started by digging a “very large pit” in his home! At a certain level it seems so simple, yet not something that would’ve struck most people. It even infects his sense of humour — he joked that if you want to build flying cars, just attach wheels to a helicopter! Or how in order to circumvent customs regulations on shipping his flamethrowers, they just labelled the boxes as “Not a flamethrower”!

This is not to glorify a single man, but an honest attempt to find out where people with such a divergent view of thinking are hidden in organizations, families and in our everyday lives. We have conditioned ourselves to think / speak / behave in “acceptable” ways.

Just think back to your school days, the best behaved usually meant being obedient, blindly accepting status quo / authority and living with a constant fear of social ostracism. Anything else and you were branded a trouble maker and sent to the principal’s office. We’ve somehow carried this into our workplaces — our mental label maker is ready to mark anyone who thinks / behaves differently as a misfit. We do our darn best to strip the person of his individuality and fit our comfortable (read “acceptable”) mould.

I don’t know about you, but I yearn for those people who can blow my mind in a 10 min conversation! How do we create teams / organizations that bring in some of this “crazy”??

PS: I would recommend Rogan’s podcast for some of this crazy. I loved the one with Courtney Dauwalter too.