#crazy wisdom

"Crazy wisdom is the wisdom of the saint, the Zen master, the poet, the mad scientist, and the fool. Crazy wisdom sees that we live in a world of many illusions, that the emperor has no clothes, and that much of human belief and behavior is ritualized nonsense. Crazy wisdom loves paradox and puns and pie fights and laughing at politicians." From the book You Are Not Your Fault by Wes "Scoop" Nisker page 45

Note: 7/13/2026

I stumbled recently across the book You Are Not Your Fault amongst my sister Zoe's things that I brought home after her 2023 death. And, I realized I had hit a gold mine! I'm a big believer in crazy brilliance, which is the contorted journey life can take to arrive at a realization. All of the wrong turns and bad decisions land you right exactly where you needed to be. Mr Nisker's definition of Crazy Wisdom provides a perfect road map through the geography of crazy brilliance.

AALY Trio + K. Vandermark - I Wonder If I Was Screaming. 2000 : Crazy Wisdom.

Crazy Wisdom, as I understand it, means not planting your foot firmly either in the material world or the spiritual world. When we have the spiritual world view, then we are bounded by the so-called spiritual world. When we are materialistic, we are bounded by the so-called materialistic view. But if you go beyond that, if you take this extra leap, then that is the crazy wisdom leap—it's like taking a leap into the abyss. But it's not the abyss of nothingness, it's the abyss of reality.

One third Swedish, Two thirds Norwegian, The Thing added a fourth part Poughkeepsian in the formidable form of Joe McPhee for its sophomore album, She Knows… in 2001. The trio’s chosen sobriquet sourced from a Don Cherry composition of the same name, a second choice since their first, Trans Love Airways, was already spoken for by another Swedish group with no love lost. The disc was the sixth release on a label run by saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, he the Swedish contingent, and two colleagues. It swiftly attracted accolades as a provocative composite of free jazz lucidity with punk rock-inspired energy before abruptly falling out of print.

Crazy wisdom is just the action of truth... It cuts everything down... It doesn’t even try to translate falseness into truthfulness, because even that in itself is corruption... It is ruthless, because if you want the complete truth, if you want to be completely wholly wholesome, than any suggestion that comes up of translating whatever arises into “your terms” is not worth looking into...