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Sunday, March 28, 2010

MADNESS

At my most brilliant moments I flirt a little with madness - toying and teasing it as though it holds the answer that will catapult me from my rut. I have never quite gone over the edge though because I lack that creative genius and daring that only the privileged few are blessed with.

Unlike Nikos Kazantzakis' character, Alexis Zorba, I am too attached to my finger to slice it off for the sake of a pot - no, not even for a perfect pot. Nor can I cut off my ear with a razor and throw it at the foot of a man I fancy, though I would very much enjoy doing this if there was guarantee that it could be stitched back on again. But madness comes with no guarantees.

Once the threshold is crossed there is no stepping back from the fuse of inspired destruction...but what a way to be destroyed! Like a human firework blitzkrieging to athanasia...like Van Gogh, like Sylvia Plath, like Kurt Cobain, like Virginia Woolf, like Edgar Allan Poe, like Michael Jackson, like Friedrich Nietzche, like an endless list of immortal lunatics.

Would they have been geniuses had they not been crazy? Sometimes I even wonder if these people were really "ill". Perhaps they just perceived a world that the rest of us are blind to simply becuse we don't have the capacity to hear the voices that may or may not be there. If you could conquer your fear of destruction while at the same time embosoming and enhancing it and turn your life and death into brilliant art in an all-consuming manic rage of psychotic artistic originality, would you? Perhaps the price of greatness is sanity...Is it worth the price?

"Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical."
Sylvia Plath, an excerpt from her poem "Daddy"

4 comments:

moleculeColony said...

You forgot another one of that brand. His name was Jesus Christ, and he really believed his hallucinations were a sort of visions of supernatural things that really exist, and so strong was his believe that he could make lots of people believe what he believed, up to this day.
Every psychologist would send him to the psychiatrists nowadays, and they would give him some medicine, and he would be quiet, so from an anthropological point of view we can be happy that religion was invented before science, or it wouldn't be there at all, and then we wouldn't know that such thing could exist, and also wouldn't have such a big field to investigate belief processes.

Robin said...

As someone who constantly worries about being crazy, I can tell you that there is NO SOLACE there. Of course, I don't think about doing crazy things to get the attention of someone I love, I just worry about actually being crazy, so I suppose that there is a difference. The thing about crazy that I don't like is the accompanying feeling of things being out of control. It really is like falling off the edge and going into free fall and not knowing where the bottom is. The longer you fall, the more you know you it is going to hurt. Nope, not a big fan of crazy. Been there, done that, still taking the medicine, and hanging onto the ledge by my fingernails.

Purple Cow said...

I have never thought of Jesus in the way you suggest. Interesting indeed, especially in light of the fact that psychiatrists see many people claiming to be God. The claim of Jesus to be the Son of God and not just a great teacher leaves three possibilities (a) that he was deluded (b) was deliberately attempting to deceive his followers or (c) as he claimed. I think we can rule out (b) as there seems to be no indication of this. That leaves (a) and (c) open...Truth is his teachings are full of wisdom and have always appeared to me to be the products of a sane mind. We can rule out neither (a) nor (c). Or perhaps both apply - if there is a God perhaps he is just a crazy genius with lots of humour...surely this world is not the product of a sane mind.

By the way, I'm glad you responded to this post MC as it was your blog that prompted it.

As for you Robin, you must be very crazy because I am drawn to you and it’s usually lunatics that catch my fancy. But, hey, why fight it? I think craziness is a little like natural childbirth – it is futile to suppress the pain, best to ride its crest and let it take you to where it wants. By the way, I don’t think any of us are 100% sane…and thank goodness for that or else we’d be boring!

Propoquerian said...

I myself have gotten a control on crazy. No...i probably haven't, there is probably no such thing.
But, the "control" i think i have is in my words...my humor. My "what if" comments. they're sort of like word vomit. I just say whatever comes to mind....but i only SAID it, and didnt do it. and people think it's funny!

did i not just recently post about my hypothetical female erection? ok well i did. it was just an image that came to mind--a real one though, in my real mind! making jokes out of our crazy thoughts gives them a good vent, but keeps us at a safe distance from them.
i would not have so peacefully submitted to being nailed to a cross, you know what i'm saying? If jesus just woulda laughed a little after his preaching, he may not have gotten him into that mess!
see..that's another crazy comment of mine ;)