I N S A N I T Y

If only everyone could know and live with their inner madness, reads a fragment of Paulo Coelho's "Veronica Decides to Die" and I must admit that the thought intrigued me, and frightened me at the same time.

but then the writer continues, Would the world be a worse place for it? No, people would be fairer and happier. (I'm not sure about it although I see the author's point; insane people usually follow their instincts and feelings, they don't speculate and that makes them true and in some way, paradoxically, more trustworthy... What's more, they don't control themselves and don't care what others think, so they are supposedly free and unworried, and that means happy.)

Imagine a place where people pretend to be mad in order to do exactly what they want. (Paulo Coelho, "Veronica Decides to Die")

and even serious crimes would be justifiable and obscene behavior allowed? (mind you, Veronika, the protagonist, dares to masturbate in front of her friend from asylum who suffers from schizophrenia)

- kill him. You have to kill him, Jacky, and her, too. Because a real artist must suffer. Because each man kills the thing he loves. Because they’ll always be conspiring against you, trying to hold you back and drag you down. (Stephen King “The Shining”)

here the problem is diametrically different, but still the protagonist falls into madness and hears its voice advising him to act cruelly or heartlessly, suggesting Jack murder his family;

perhaps the essential fact is that the protagonist, though recently sober, used to drink heavily and that might have explained the events that occured.. but anyway, insanity DOES have something to do with violence and hatred, and accordingly, a place full of such people would be certainly far from perfect and wouldn't resemble calm happy existence,

to sum up, insanity is a mess which mad people cannot control and their love-ones cannot understand and which might be equal with both freedom and destruction... (or even self-destruction - look at Vincent van Gogh, who cut off his ear)

And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses (Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart”)

do we really know what madness is? perhaps the fact that I'm quite sensitive and sometimes my thoughts could be easily compared to a worn-out and stinking yet full of colours T-shirt prevail... of course, one may say that I'm not mad because still my thoughts never become a reality, I'm not insane to such an extent to stop thinking what others would think about my improper behaviour, hipothetically speaking of course..

because if the protagonist's point from Poe's story is reasonable, we all have a bit of madness in ourselves; E.A.Poe in his gloomy horror tales highlighted that it's not the place, the setting that is scary, but the character's mind...

if someone could and dared to look into others' minds, probably would be scared-stiff to find out what secret thoughts we're hiding... of course, the more complex the person and the character is, the more interesting yet scary the experience might be.

the conclusion? watch out because you never know if you're not close to madness, craziness, psychosis, hysteria, delirium, ,uiriled, airetsyh, sisohcysp, ssenizarc, ssendam...

or you'd better not watch at all, it may catch you anyway

just be happy the way the world works

cheers to all lunatics!