The Crazymaker in Our Midst

Crazymakers are those personalities that create storm centers. They are often charismatic, frequently charming, highly inventive, and powerfully persuasive … Crazymakers are the kind of people who can take over your whole life … Crazymakers like drama. If they can swing it, they are the star. Everyone around them functions as supporting cast, picking up their cues, their entrances and exits, from the crazymaker’s crazy whims.

Sound familiar?

Well, Julia Cameron published The Artist’s Way in 1992, so clearly she wasn’t talking about Donald Trump when she wrote that. At least not specifically. Back then he was wreaking havoc on a much smaller number of lives.

But now, here I am, teaching Cameron’s book as a course for the umpteenth time, and the concept of crazymaker has taken on a whole new dimension. In the second chapter of The Artist’s Way, one focused on “moving you into your personal identity” in order to push through self-doubt and self-sabotage, Cameron goes into great detail on what she calls Poisonous Playmates and Crazymakers. Essentially, she wants you to practice your creativity and work through these relationships that can be obstacles.

As I was preparing to teach the chapter recently, I realized it would be the first time I would be doing so with a crazymaker running our country. I suddenly had a broader…