Being Unreasonable

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that I am through with being reasonable. I have found nothing but harm, frustration, and pain when I have chosen the path of reasonableness. (Is that really a word?) I have spent many years digging myself out of holes caused by my acceptance of some reasonable decision. I have spent years deferring things or circumstances that would have led to more fulfillment or to a better life because those things that I desired were not reasonable. I am done with that. I don’t want to go back to that way of being.

In no way am I promoting illogical or irrational behavior. Instead, I am running away from reasonable behavior. Someone might ask whether all of those terms mean the same thing in a general sense. They might under some definitions. I choose to define them differently. Illogical or irrational behaviors arise from people choosing to not to follow an ordered or organized train of thought, whatever that might entail or to whatever those outcomes may lead.

Being reasonable, on the other hand, means something totally different to me. Being reasonable is about conformity. It is about accepting the prevailing opinion of the masses and allowing that opinion to dictate to you your future and your desires. It is about allowing oneself to be controlled and directed by people or forces that may not necessarily have one’s best interests at heart. In my own experience, I have allowed people to convince me on many occasions to be reasonable. I think that when I allowed this to happen, I was truly out of alignment with myself, either because I wasn’t being honest with myself about my capabilities or because I didn’t trust myself to decide what was right for me.

A prime example of this in my life is music. I have been a musician since I was eight years old. I have played in all types of groups and have played all types of music. I finally decided when I graduated from college that I would try to take my skills to the next level. I packed up and moved to LA to go to a famous music school to get my skills together. I didn’t go to become famous or to get rich, I did it because I love music and I love playing music.

Things didn’t go the way that I planned. Certain people in my life didn’t do what they said that they would do to help me in my quest and tried to talk me out of doing what I needed to do to succeed. Fortunately I wasn’t hearing it. I went and got to it. I had to take a full time job and didn’t get to fully experience all that I wanted to experience. I really should have fought and worked harder to get everything out of the experience. Regardless I made a quantum leap in terms of personal growth that I would not trade for anything. Being unreasonable got me to the place that I could have the experience; being reasonable limited the outcome to something less than optimal. I still want to get to that elite level of ability and I have regrets about not completing what I started so many years ago.

I am a student of history. Whenever I look at the lives of “great” people, people that did remarkable or astonishing things, I see a pattern of unreasonable behavior. How many great inventors were constantly told to give up their inventions because they just wouldn’t work or because no one would want their products? How many philosophers were told that they were crazy and that their thoughts were ridiculous? How many people that have achieved anything of note by following the reasonable path?

History doesn’t remember the reasonable person. That guy that dutifully sits in his cubicle everyday pushing papers will never leave a real legacy. The woman that arrives at work everyday and keeps her head down while working toward a safe retirement won’t even be a footnote in history. They follow the reasonable path and allow that path to destroy their dreams. Reasonableness (there goes that word again) never really did anything but create slaves. It crushes dreams and kills spirits.

Even if you look at some of the greatest monsters in our history, you will see that they pursued paths that had nothing to do with reason. Every conqueror, despot, tyrant, or dictator of note achieved amazing and terrible results because they refused to recognize conventional reason as a determining factor in their strategies. While these people are reviled, they are immortals in our collective consciousness because they dared to be as unreasonable as possible. They didn’t accept external limitations.

The most recent, incredible example of unreasonable behavior comes from our last presidential election. In November of 2007, there couldn’t have been more than a few thousand people that actually believed that a Black man could be President of the United States. Most people, including me, thought that it was a pipe dream. I looked at our history as a nation and the promises of our national philosophy that are so often broken and said that there was no way could this happened. As the campaign progressed, I started to believe, even though there was always a little doubt lingering in the background. A year later in November of 2008, the unthinkable happened. I was stunned, shocked, and amazed that a Black man was elected President. He and his team did it with brilliant strategy and fund-raising. But it was all based on a belief that almost everyone in America would have called unreasonable.

Maybe some part of being reasonable is filling in the blanks with things and ideas that are limiting and just not true. Whatever it is, I don’t want any part of it. I think that I would rather be called crazy and ridiculous. I would rather have all of the doubters and haters trying to bring me down. I think that they are all indicators that I am on the right path.

I have just as much time in a day as anyone else. I now choose to spend that time doing things that benefit me and that make me happy. I know that it takes the same energy and that the pay-off is much greater. I still find it hard to believe how much of my time and effort I have given away for little or nothing to support the dreams of people that couldn’t care whether I live or die. I did this to myself all in the name of finding a reasonable way to live my life.