It’s possible, that in the future, it will make a great deal of sense, to act like a mad fool. In fact, it’s possible, that putting on an antic disposition might successfully get one out of a great many scrapes.
Your job making you crazy? Just act crazy!
Your romance a little on edge? Tip it over with madness!
Your family plucking your nerves? Pluck up and Mad up!
People will give a crazy person a very wide berth – so it creates a great deal of freedom, in a way. The only trouble is, when people think you’re crazy, they start to give you a wide berth and they get a wary look in their eyes around you and then you might find yourself entirely alone, when you hadn’t quite meant to do that.
There were many times when J. was actually crazy, when there was nothing for it but to put him on a bus and send him back to his doctors and familial net – and I watched the strangers on his bus give him lots of room, watched them look at him from the corners of their eyes, saw them hope that the crazy kid wouldn’t talk to them. In one way, he was safe as houses on that bus because no one, but no one, would bother him – but with his mind estranged from itself, he was not safe from himself, even if he was immune to the reactions of the people around him. I, however, was not immune. My heart broke as I saw the world respond to someone I love with fear and trepidation. It’s breaking still.
The Hamlet Project 