Public Service Announcement: Don't Worry. You're Crazy Too, Just Like the Rest of Us.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am a recovering perfectionist. Well, some might call my perfectionism obsessive compulsive, but whatever. Tomato, tomato. I would argue that the forces within my brain urging me to make my life match the cover of every magazine I've ever seen, makes me normal. Very normal. I'll admit it, I'm putty in the advertisers and marketers hands just like the (evil) psychologists they hire want me to be. And you aren't? If you think you're not putty, the next time you get on Google or Facebook, check out the ads they've posted just for you. The magical algorithms of the google gods have figured out your "uniqueness" and placed you firmly in a demographic.

It is crazy really. We think of ourselves as individuals to a fault here in the states, and yet we follow what The Media tells us to do like a herd of sheep. The internet revolution has only added to this mania. We all (yes, even the perfection queen Marth Stewart) have information overload so bad that we are now a herd of psychologically disturbed sheep. Depending upon which information source we are digesting for the day, we have ADD at our best and at our worst - paranoid schitzophrenia.

Just for the record, this is not a reprimand. Just an observation and announcement that we are all crazy. All of us. Batshit crazy. And I would assert that us Americans are the craziest of them all. A short time at the mall, or even better, at a bar pretending to be an anthropologist will confirm this point.

Of course we are all crazy in our own special way (along with the other thousands of people scattered throughout the country who are crazy just like us according to the google gods). We are Americans afterall.

This is why I love the field of psychology, and why I will spend my life trying to understand our messed up brains. Humans. Are. Crazy. That's what makes us interesting. And possibly what separates us from the real animals. Maybe. This really depends on where you are getting your information fix.

So, yes I am crazy. And probably more of a sheep than I'd care to admit. But, that is the first step to being less crazy and less sheepish right? Acknowledging who we are and announcing it to the world with authenticity is the best weapon we have against insanity. It's the ones who won't reveal their crazy selves to the world we need to watch out for. So, no, I am not ashamed of my crazy ass. Because if we are honest, we're all a little nuts, and that just might be the only thing that makes us truly individual.