I just saw Crazy Rich Asians a little while ago. I'm Crazy, I'm not rich, but I am Asian. Indian to be specific. You might already know this about me, but in case you didn't, I'm just clarifying. I think it's interesting we throw around the word 'crazy' in titles of popular movies and in jest when talking about or to people. "You are crazy!" We will say this at the drop of a hat.But then we use that same exact word to describe someone who is mentally ill. When we say in jest that someone is crazy we are usually commenting that they are being outlandish. When we use the word seriously, we mean that they are not ok.I wonder how many people identify as 'crazy.' Some days I do, but the good kind of crazy. Even though I have a mental illness, bipolar disorder, I don't usually call myself crazy. These are labels, words. What do they really mean anyways?We attach so much gravity and strength to words, I know this more than anyone, I'm a writer. Words are my thing. But if we really look at words they are just utterances that stand for thoughts. If we really think about it, if just one word like the word 'crazy' can have such divergent meanings, what is the point of words? Or language for that matter?Language creates labels, language can hurt. But what are we going to do, we have built our civilizations around communication, and how else would we operate? We are not mind readers, yet. I say yet because I think we have the capacity in us to read minds, we just don't know how to use it. Call me crazy but I think we have the capacity to do a lot of things that we think are unimaginable. Like seeing the future.How do I know this? Because I see it in the future.You know who I think are the real crazy people? Mean people, bad people, people who do diabolical things and then act as if they are normal. People who deliberately do things to hurt other people. Everyone knows that right? I'm stating the obvious here, right?No, I don't actually think so. Many people think that crazy refers to people who don't know what's real and what's not. I guess that's one definition. But people who do not understand reality are sick, not bad people. If we are going to use crazy as an insult, which we usually are, the only context in which 'crazy' is any good is when we are talking about someone either being funny or outrageous, in a good way.The word is so loaded, it's like the word love. It means so many things, that what does it mean after all? Like the word 'fuck.' What does 'fuck' mean? You tell me. It doesn't only mean sex. Go fuck yourself does not mean go sex yourself. I mean it could, but it means so much more than that. We could write for ages about what FUCK really means. I had a history teacher who told us that FUCK meant Fornication something, something, something that really meant to rape and pillage in the middle ages.I told my linguistics professor in college about this and he laughed, he said no one knows the origin of the word fuck.I'd like to know what the origin of all words are. Like who decided it was going to be called a table and why did we all agree with him? Who are the language makers and why did we all follow them like sheep? What if I want to call a table a doolie. Who is going to stop me?It's just a fucking table after all.Maybe I'll start a doolie movement for no reason whatsoever.nina
