If I wanted to drive someone absolutely crazy, I couldn’t do much better than following them around all day, every day, jabbering in their ear. Talking at them.
24x7x365.
Never ending.
Chatter.
Advice, quotes, jokes, and anecdotes.
If a person—or group of people—did that to you all day, every day, how long would it take for you to run away and hide your head under a pillow?
And yet, every morning we slide those earbuds into place and push play on endless interrupting chatter.
The Devil On Your Shoulder
Every 90s sitcom has an episode where a character is struggling with a decision. They find the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Those voices of their subconscious argue, advise, and amuse us with their never-ending arguments and appeals.
But they were not amusing to our lead character. They were driving them crazy.
What we do now is invite an even wider audience to sit on our shoulders. It’s not just the devil or an angel, it’s Joe, Dax, Adam, Andrew, Tim, and Jocko.
On a slow day.
Most podcasts players even have a sleep setting, so you can drift off to Neverland with the same cast of characters droning on and on, into your subconscious. You’ll sleep even better at 2x speed.
Nighty-night!
Lay back and bathe yourself in the unending torrent of other people’s opinions.
When it happens in the physical world, we have a name for them. Crazymakers.
Crazymakers spend your time and money. Crazymakers ignore schedules – except their own. Crazymakers discount your perceptions. Crazymakers deny that they are crazymakers.
The list goes on, but you get the idea.
We’ve recreated this behavior in the virtual world and turned it on ourselves. We’ll make the case that it’s entertainment, education, or productivity. That might be true. But when it’s never ending, it’s a crazymaker.
The dose makes the poison.
That lovely girl you took out? If she goes full stage five clinger, she is now a crazymaker.
See how that works?
That wonderful interview you’ve just got to hear? The one with the comedian and the flat earther? If it’s causing outrage and drama, it’s a crazymaker, too.
What About Bob?
In the documentary What About Bob?, we see the crazymaker, Bob, navigating the world with impunity. He shows up at his doctor’s vacation home and inserts himself into all parts of his life.
Sound familiar? Let me help.
Bob eventually drives his doctor off the deep end, institutionalized.
Crazymaker.
Who or what is sitting there at your door every time you open it, ready to make you crazy?
It’s not just our friendly podcast hosts selling AG1.
It’s not just the endless chatter.
That will drive you crazy, but it won’t completely break you. If we want quicker results, we’ll add a few layers. We’ll overwhelm all the senses.
Overstimulation Is A Crazymaker
I’ve seen Zero Dark Thirty, and it appears to me that you can crack someone wide open with the combination of bright lights, loud music, and a confined space.
The CIA would call it sensory bombardment or sensory overload. It occurs when one or more of the body’s senses experiences over-stimulation from the environment.
Our human OS is not really built for three screens, music, podcasts, video games, and social media. All at the same time.
But we want it all, so we just keep plugging things in, one on top of the next.
When we should be resting, we stay up half the night, blasting ourselves with bright lights and noise. We give ourselves the same treatment as an Al-Qaeda informant.
Moving from Instagram to YouTube to TikTok. Mr. Beast as a PSYOP would be a powerful weapon.
Blast away and you’ll be short on sleep, irritable, and cranky. You’ll be one step closer to crazy.
Constant interruptions driving you up the wall? As a kid, I had a neighbor that always wanted to play. We’d turn the lights off and pretend not to be home, but he never went away.
Ding-Dong.
We couldn’t avoid it. He made us crazy. I’d eventually answer the door and try to scare him off.
The next day?
Ding-Dong.
He had a short memory.
Every quiet moment was interrupted.
The neighbor was a crazymaker but apparently, I didn’t learn my lesson. I still let interruptions take hold. I still let crazymakers into my life on a daily basis.
Do you see the common thread? Things that would drive us nuts in real life, tactics that are outlawed by the United Nations, we do to ourselves.
So, who is the crazy maker in your life?
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.
How can we avoid the crazymaker?
Here are a few crazy things that I’ll be trying (AGAIN) to defend myself against the crazymaker.
- No phone in the bedroom. That little glow bug keeps me up all night.
- Read physical books. They don’t have notifications.
- Turn off all non-emergency notifications.
- Wear a watch. The simple act of checking the time on a phone is tempting fate. Don’t tempt fate.
In general, avoid the crazymaker when you can.
