For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativit... — Jean Dubuffet

For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.

Author: Jean Dubuffet

Insight: There's something liberating but also unsettling about this idea: that fitting in might actually be a form of losing yourself. Most of us are raised to see "normal" as safe—follow the rules, do what everyone else does, blend in. But Dubuffet is pointing at something real: the person who never questions anything, who accepts the world exactly as they find it, who thinks exactly like their neighbors—that person has essentially outsourced their thinking. They're living on autopilot. The tricky part is that this isn't really about being weird for its own sake or rejecting all social convention. It's about maintaining your capacity to see things differently, to imagine alternatives, to ask "why?" when everyone else says "because." That muscle atrophies without use. When you stop creating—whether that's through art, writing, problem-solving, or just daydreaming—you start accepting everything as it is. And that acceptance, Dubuffet suggests, is its own kind of mental imprisonment. In everyday life, this shows up quietly. It's the person who talks about hating their job but can't imagine doing anything else. The friend who laughs at someone's unconventional choice instead of asking what they see that others don't. The hardest part of living creatively isn't actually being bold—it's giving yourself permission to think sideways in the first place.