I always wondered why people are attracted to the idea of being crazy or insane until it happens then it's not so cool. what is the appeal to you?
L'appel du vide.
It's terribly confronting to be made aware of your own irrelevance, though there are many reasons why insanity may appeal. For some, it is a means to ensure the attention and coddling of their loved ones. For some, it is a means to stay relevant in their circle of colleagues or peers. For others, clinical treatment may substitute the love they were denied from parents or partners. For some, establishing a particular sort of fragility excuses behaviours (such as arriving at work late, etc). For some, insanity reinforces that distinctly human need to be unique and special.
When I was much, much younger, my idols were almost exclusively damaged writers. William S. Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe, Allan Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oscar Wilde, so on and so forth, almost all of whom led terribly tragic lives. For a while, I felt as though my own writing wouldn't reflect the brutal kaleidoscope of the human experience unless I myself were trapped in a pit of despair. I couldn't fathom a happy, psychologically stable writing producing anything worth reading.
Of course, I was wrong, and adolescence gave way to wisdom. But it took a damn while.
"Walk like a sheep, talk like a sheep, eat like a sheep and..."
And you're a sheep. Everyone does this. I do this. My colleagues do this. Very few people are actually brainwashed. Most just walk like a sheep to meet their own ends, but have vibrant inner worlds. That's pack life.