The quest for sanity takes a lifetime. If you don't make it, you may have to take one more.
- Stobblehouse
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Just for instance, I'm only now noticing that I'm a bit obsessive. Far from OCD territory, but enough that I know I would be well off with less. For instance, I will spend hours finding a bit of software that I well know I may never actually use. Just because I got it into my head that I want it. (As was the case with the texture making software a few weeks ago.)
Recently I am also noticing how all actors in the past decade have gotten their teeth whitened. It looks odd when they are playing people in historical times. (Example: Tom Cruise in "The Latest Samurai".*)
Also, the line "let's get out of here" in films. It's rumored to be the most used line ever, and I can believe it. I notice it now all the time. :)
* Or whatever it was called. Not too exciting a movie. It was about "honor". Apparently that concept means to kill those opposing your friends, until you discover that your friends are worse, then you kill them instead.
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TTL injected:
Sanity is other people's idea of how you should act and behave. Why would you want to quest for that?
Good point. This is often how "sanity" is perceived. And funny enough, this is of course an insane idea of it.
I'm not talking about behavior. And definitely not "normal" behavior, whatever that is. I'm talking about clear thinking and clear perceptions, free from the robotic endoctrinations and emotions that we are under from society and from our very humanness.
Don't ask me what totally clear perceptions would reveal. Perhaps one would not even be really human if and when one has them.
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Michael said:
Mark Vonnegut's book is about himself. I believe he suffered a form of schizophrenia. It got particularly bad at a time when the counter-cultural acceptance of individual difference was at its height. As a result, he thinks that slowed recognition that he had a serious problem.
As he tells his story, it becomes increasingly clear that he was not just expressing his unique world-view -- he was seriously, seriously ill.
In the end, he still embraces the "live and let live" counter-culture acceptance of individual differences, but he has shown that, yes, it really is possible to be insane. And it's terrifying.
It might not sound like it, but I thought it was a very uplifting book.
Yes, insanity is indeed frightening.
Slightly related, I recently read Carrie Fisher's book The Best Awful, partially about a nervous breakdown.
The film Vampire's Kiss with Nicolas Cage is one of the best films I've seen about a man going insane. Although it's very unusual, it can be seen as a comedy or a fantasy film or whatnot.
Sanity is overrated.
ReplyDeleteSanity is other people's idea of how you should act and behave. Why would you want to quest for that?
ReplyDeleteI say: A lifetime of quest for sanity is a lifetime of wasted experience.
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live." -Oscar Wilde
Sanity is overrated.
ReplyDeleteOnly a crazy person would say that.
I wish I were a bit more sane..
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. ;)
Humans are the least sane of all the great apes.
ReplyDeletePaul said...
ReplyDeleteHumans are the least sane of all the great apes.
So you're related to an ape? Sorry about your misfortune. I'm glad my family wasn't into beastality.
Sanity is other people's idea of how you should act and behave.
ReplyDeleteIncorrect. There are difference forms of insanity. Denying it will not gloss over it. People hearing voices and cooking dead flesh or having multiple personalities etc. The list is endless. No, Insanity is a reality that takes place everyday period.
I work in an institution full of mental disturbed people. I've seen a lot and know about the subject at hand. Some medications help but at times it's just a curse with no cure.
Steve said...
ReplyDeleteSanity is overrated
I would seek treatment if I had that attitude sir. Best luck, you'll need it. Sincerely, HL Hubbard
Eolake has said: "...I'm talking about clear thinking and clear perceptions, free from the robotic endoctrinations and emotions that we are under from society and from our very humanness.
ReplyDeleteDon't ask me what totally clear perceptions would reveal. Perhaps one would not even be really human if and when one has them."
The quest for sanity needs really obsession, not to tolerate anymore to be a liar to yourself, and to dissolve all beliefs fogging your perception. A real intense urge, like the urge for oxygen when somebody holds your head under water and you feel that you will be drowned in a few moments ...
During my quest for truth I stumbled upon a book from Jed McKenna: Spiritual Enlightenment - The Damnedest Thing (www.wisefoolpress.com), triggering some kind of soul surgery and opening many doors which were never closed ...
Yes, it's true, everybody has to go alone, and IS fundamentally alone, and a clear perception reveals that you are not a part of humanity, at least not in the sense most people would understand it - alone means all-one, based on no-thing, and that's much more and at the same time much less than to be a part.
And, as long as I'm on this planet in this human form, I'm in awe about beauty in its many unique forms (may it be female - hi Eolake, I appreciate very much your DOMAI-website! - or otherwise), looking again, and again (btw. the literal meaning of the word "respect"), always fresh and nourishing me deeply - and for sure, a good nourishment helps to become more sane!
@ttl : "Sanity is other people's idea of how you should act and behave..." - Please don't mistake opportunism as realism (many people do it anyway)!
I remember a sentence I've heard many years ago:
Life is not a problem to be solved,
Life is a mystery to be lived.
Black attendant - Well even then, I think it's a matter of cultural perspective to a certain extent. In some aboriginal societies, they make you a shaman if you hear voices. I got a friend who says she hears like 8 voices in her head, but it's apparently not to the extent where it really interferes with her life. Sometimes I wonder if there's really something wrong with them, or if they're just hearing something we can't.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I too have some obsessive-compulsive traits. Sometimes if I do something with one hand, I feel a strong impulse to do it with the other hand. I have to watch TV in bed for thiry minutes every night or else I can't go to sleep. It seems there's something in my brain that makes me susceptible to weird, ritualistic habits like that. But again, it doesn't actually interfere with my life, so I don't bother myself with it too much.
If you've met a "genuinely troubled" person -- who has a legitimate "personality disorder" as diagnosable in the DSM from the traditional psychological community -- you'd know. It's really quite surprising how everyone at a cocktail party just does NOT want to be in the same room as someone who is truly histrionic, or borderline, or dependent, or ...
ReplyDeleteAnd if you've ever met a "genuinely insane" person, same story. You probably know it in an instant, though you often try to tell yourself that because you're not an expert you ought to give that person the benefit of the doubt.
There are desperate people; and there are unhappy people; and people willing to commit criminal or violent acts in order to get what they perceive that they want badly, or need, or require. These people aren't necessarily "insane." When you find one who IS "insane" you almost always "get it" right away. Very few can go under the radar.
I met one person who was a genuine hysteric. (Now they call it "histrionic personality disorder.") No, not just a "typical woman" who wanted to imbue everything with drama dn unreasonable levels of screaming nail-biting hand-wringing epizootics. She was TRULY a problem. If push came to shove, and she found herself moored by Katrina's floodwaters, I think nobody would bother to save her. And none would feel somehow "troubled" by their own choice to cut her off like that. In emergency situations, the balanced-but-annoying person quite quickly leaves his or her lack of cooperativeness on the kerb and gets right down to fixing problems. But the problem-personality can't do that; he or she just keeps on denying reality, perhaps right unto death.
It's in situations of extremis that we find out where our real judgments lie. My histrionic acquaintance showed up uninvited and unannounced on my porch four thousand miles out of her way, and somehow I just "knew" not to invite her in for a cup of tea. Instead, I let her speak to me on the porch, and I locked the door that night. It wasn't a "seasoned judgment" or "experience" teaching me what to do with her. It was human nature.
She raises my hackles. She raises EVERYONE's hackles. I as much as told her (I think it was, in a sense, the only kind thing to do): "Dear Miss X: You have a problem personality. I am not comfortable associating with you. I encourage you to seek professional counseling for what I -- as a layman -- deem to be the histrionic disorder. Please do not contact me again." It worked wonders. I hear she's being histrionic all over again somewhere else, and leaving behind hordes of annoyed former acquaintances. Many of whom probably wrote her similar letters.
What did she do/say? Was she coherent?
ReplyDeleteeolake said...
ReplyDeleteWhat did she do/say? Was she coherent?
Does it really matter Eolake? FI was correct in sending her away proving that TTL was indeed incorrect in his statement. And black attendant hit the mark also.
Denying insanity is like denying the atmosphere we breathe.
Some are insane, no need for a blue print. (I'm not joking either.) Have a great day all.
@ttl : "Sanity is other people's idea of how you should act and behave..." - Please don't mistake opportunism as realism (many people do it anyway)!
ReplyDeletePerhaps TTL is afraid to face his own reflection?
Worth reading on the topic of insanity: "The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity," by Mark Vonnegut, son of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading that book, I would never subscribe to the idea that sanity is simply "other people's idea of how you should act and behave."
Is the book about Kurt Vonnegut? Or?
ReplyDeleteEolake: what she had done was, at an earlier point in my experience with her, she had (simultaneously) stated she was interested in unattached sex to a large gathering of graduate students, and stabbed herself in the hand with a fork to the point that she bled. Later, after I had moved to a new town, she attended a conference near me and just "arrived." With her bags. The clear implication was that she would wish to visit me, stay with me, or perhaps enjoy either (a) unattached sex or (b) fork stabbing. :P
ReplyDeleteMark Vonnegut's book is about himself. I believe he suffered a form of schizophrenia. It got particularly bad at a time when the counter-cultural acceptance of individual difference was at its height. As a result, he thinks that slowed recognition that he had a serious problem.
ReplyDeleteAs he tells his story, it becomes increasingly clear that he was not just expressing his unique world-view -- he was seriously, seriously ill.
In the end, he still embraces the "live and let live" counter-culture acceptance of individual differences, but he has shown that, yes, it really is possible to be insane. And it's terrifying.
It might not sound like it, but I thought it was a very uplifting book.