Now why is it there, do you wonder? I am not clinically insane - in the sense that I don't bite people or go dancing and singing in the buff or way-out things like that - and yet all my friends have known for a long time that lots of people call me mad, and not always very kindly either. Let me see: can you count the ways in which I have been said to be 'mad'? ... and do you think you can figure out why it might be a pleasure, too?
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3 comments:
I'll go around this post of yours in a roundabout way but I'll do something that I don't normally do - I'll put in numerous quotes.
I don't know whether Salvador Dali really said so, but apparently he said something to the effect of: "There is only one difference between the madman and me. He thinks he's sane. I know I'm mad."
Much joy there is in madness and in knowing that one is mad, I'd say….
Well, I know people have called you mad because you didn't go and study medicine when you could have, and I remember a couple of other similar such tales that you have narrated....Why would these things make you mad though? But I keep losing the reasons. Why do normal people think you're mad? In this sense I would say that Ezra Pound had it right when he ruminated thus: "I guess the definition of a madman is a man who is surrounded by them."
Yet I would cheer on with Shaw who said, "We want a few mad people now. See where the sane ones have landed us!" And I would most certainly nod my head, clap and say that of course you are mad. We need more like you.
And Aristotle quite emphatically said that "no great genius existed without a touch of madness…."And didn't Plato say too that "Our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, provided the madness is given us by divine gift." So ha-ha to the people who call you mad.
But of course it really depends, doesn't it: how one sees what one sees? And to go around in a circle somewhat, I'll end off with Emily Dickinson's crystal sharp observation for the nonce...
Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense is the starkest madness.
P.S: So Suvro da, I still don't see why the normals call you mad....or maybe I do...
I don't really see how every man is not mad in his own whimsical ways, unless he has not been fine-tuned to robotic perfection for reasons I can't fathom. There is a streak of madness even in the sanest of persons.
I'd written this solemn comment regarding madness and reality and our perceptions of the two on pseudo-psychological (pseudo- because my knowledge of psychology is purely intuitive and has no academic sanction) lines on a post about 15 Park Avenue on Supra's blog, so there's no need to reproduce it here. Besides, the discussion here is not meant to veer to the overtly solemn...
And eh, anyway, every inspiration that has been good or useful to mankind is indebted to madness for it's conception! How can one not be mad if he wants to transcend the rutted tracks of what everyone else can see and perceive and discover something.
Also, madness as in randomness is a very beautiful quirk. I've been given to random bouts of kind behaviour, and it has always left me quite happy and contented.
Given all this and more, how can one not be happy to be called mad? My closest friend calls me a freak (though in an affectionate way), and that never fails to warm my heart!
I was expecting a lot of comments here, seeing that so many people love to call me names behind my back! Sad...
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