Madness…

You spend your whole life listening to people telling you what to do and then you realise that they never had the answers in the first place either. Perhaps it’s better to listen to yourself. Mind you, they say that talking to yourself is, if not the first, one of the signs of madness and it’s impossible to listen to yourself unless you are actually speaking. Yes, Madness. They also say it’s a thin line between being mad and being a genius, so perhaps it’s best not to listen to them at all – remember, they never have the answers anyway.

Are any of us sure that we are really sane? Well, maybe those of us who have a certificate from our psychiatrists, but the rest of us? How do we know that we aren’t mad? Well, I have no hairs on the palms of my hands. I know, I’ve just checked.

I’m having a hard time at the moment reconciling what I am programmed to be, should be, could be, want to be and what I am. You see the reconciliation doesn’t seem to work, somehow the numbers just don’t add up. At times working out who I am almost drives me mad. Oh, I know that I’m not Napoleon or Henry VIII and I’m pretty sure that fairies don’t really exist, but knowing who I am is a bit of a challenge. I know my name, I remember more about my experiences than most, when and where I was born and I don’t have any uncontrollable urges. I’m even pretty sure that under examination I’d be certified sane, but one man’s sanity is another’s madness.

How mad to you have to be to drive a car at over 200 miles an hour as other cars speed around with you? You have to be mad to try to walk to the North Pole don’t you, or catch a rattlesnake with a stick, or believe that the world was created in seven days, or that some guy on a cross died to save us all?

Mind you just a few hundred years ago the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, angels could sit upon the end of pins, there was only ocean where America is now and you were clearly mad if you thought otherwise. If you were really unlucky The Spanish Inquisition would come around for a chat and have you locked away or burnt – and nobody really expected that did they?

Madness I think is part about convention, part what is acceptable at the time and part chemical imbalance. Only a handful of decades ago single mothers were locked away in asylums for being weak minded and it was perfectly okay to force your will on half the world and take over everything. Back then missionaries had native peoples locked up in asylums for refusing to embrace Christianity, homosexuals underwent surgery to cure their madness and dyslexics were labelled as having unsuond mnids.

Even now, in many people’s minds all dictators are mad by definition as are most artists, some writers, and anyone who dresses as a woman who isn’t. All murderers are mad aren’t they? Terrorists too surely, and how about the fifth of US citizens who believe they have been, or have almost been, abducted by aliens? Do YOU see dead people?

Yes, it’s everywhere. Best get your straight-jacket ready. Actually, best put it on.