Tis Madness I Tell You
A zeitgeist for insanity.
This article is about madness really. An oldie from few years ago I decided to rewrite and repost for posterity. As always, don’t take it seriously, only sincerely.
What is it like being crazy? We often think that it will be horrible, of losing your mind. But I’m here to tell you, it is fuck-en fantastic! There’s nothing like being a little insane. And I mean that in the good way.
You see, there are two kinds of crazy out there, essentially. The first are the people, who go out of their way to do something that either hurts themself in some way, or other people. But there is another kind of crazy, where instead of hurting others, you simply confuse the shit out of them.
There are several reasons for this. For one thing, it’s funny as fuck watching them look around them like somebody just walked in in a clown suit, sat down, and started playing System of a Down’s Toxicity with the harmonica.
And secondly, it acts as a kind of “reconfigurer” for people who I would say are oblivious to just how weird this world around them really is. It keeps them on their toes, to borrow the phrase from George Carlin, a late master of comedy. Now, to business.
Madness is Just the Beginning
I don’t know how it’s done. Should’ve known they would put me here, out of all the possible places. Alas, I’m destroyed. One final word out before I disappear though. Wish me luck? Nope. Nobody to wish me luck. We don’t exist, remember?
Goodbyes are never easy. So why am I here with nothing but my underwear on? Anyway, we’re about to take off. I’ve been preparing for it my entire life. Oh, hello there. What the fuck. …And a little bit there. No more lies. Yeah right. All I have is lies.
What’s the use if everything is meaningless? That is one of the questions. But the answer to that is really interesting. And what answer is that? I’ll tell you later. Right now, I have to to concentrate on this sandwich in front of me. Damn… It tastes like shit. Must’ve been that one piece I saved up from last year in the closet. Holy fuck it’s black. Well, if I die as a result, at least I’ll still be here.
What a memory. Desperation rears its ugly head. I can’t breathe unless I release myself completely. But I don’t like hurting anyone. So I must contain myself in this fleshy prison. Then again, the prison is an illusion. If I had to say something important to the people next to my deathbed, I’d say “we’re all God in disguise, so don’t ever worry.”
Tripping balls in the afternoon, I find myself looking at the contours of the wall in front of me. The melting paint, interspersed with a multitude of a spectre of colours. Even Da Vinci would be jealous. He used to trip balls too and see shit on the walls we couldn’t even dream of. May he rest in pieces. Oh, I’m clear again. But is that even a thing when I’m this crazy?
There isn’t a grain of sand in this cosmos that is misplaced. Although, this sand in my pants sure is. Another thing I don’t know how it got there. Might’ve been another blackout. Decay of the mind. Everything in nature is in a state of decay, disappearance, destruction. That is why all systems we make up eventually crumble down. And that brings me a kind of bittersweet satisfaction.
Time will tell. Time doesn’t even exist. But we use time to effectively function in this so-called society. I’m not one for making calls to action but if I had a say, we would have an anarchic utopia based on mutual cooperation. No leaders, no governments. But, instead of that we will have a nice little dystopia.
A hair’s breath from annihilation. What to do… Oh, I know. Let’s write something. A zeitgeist for insanity. That is what this current era is about. People are out of their minds. Just look at the news. I never look at the news, because I know it’s always the same old shit. People being crazy. And I happen to know something about crazy.
Stages of Insanity
Now, to keep this longer than is bearable, and ending with the most batcrappy insane material I can muster, as a sort of “thoughts in the brink of mental deterioration”, let me try and identify the levels of crazy, just for fun (specifically, the kind of crazy where you don’t hurt others but instead just confuse them).
Stage One: The “Off-Centered”
These are the kinds of crazies, who will simply say something weird here and there, as a sort of “what did they just say?” stimulation for others. Such as “I went to the store this morning and it was fine. Bacon.” This is the most common category. I think almost 99% of all people have accidentally said a word that didn’t belong there.
Stage Two: The “Behaviorists”
These are the ones, who will behave in a way that is quirky, odd, or otherwise strange. They might kick the air in the middle of a conversation, or walk in a funny way to attract attention. Lots of performers and comedians, or generally clown-like people fall into this category.
Stage Three: The “Rule Breakers”
Oh boy. Here we go. These are the taboo-breaking individuals. And I don’t necessarily mean breaking the law. I mean all kinds of social conventions that are mostly taken for granted or assumed by the great majority. Lots of criminals, beatniks, or people who consider them “outside the pale” belong in this one. By that last one I mean generally people who feel like they don’t belong anywhere, and so will emphasize this non-beloning in their conduct and communication.
Stage Four: The “Mystics”
Now then. The fourth group of nutters belong to what I’ve chosen to call mystics. Reason being that this is the most elusive and hard-pressing of the categories. For example, there is nothing more crazy in my opinion, than saying to someone that they are responsible for the creation of the universe. And that’s basically the main message of so many esoteric traditions it’s not even funny.
I will not mention any particular ones in this article because they are irrelevant to the topic in a sense. Nevertheless, if the reader is familiar with my little articles, it doesn’t take a genius to realize what they are.
Stage Five: The “Hopeless”
Here’s where we get to the final stage, which is the most desperate of them all. It is the individual who cannot distinguish different levels of reality from each other. Even one who has experienced a temporary “ego death”, is still able to, at least usually, make notations of a difference between the level they were in just now, and the one they return to. In other words, they are able to live on several levels simultaneously.
But the hopeless crazies, are the ones who cannot function on this level anymore, because they are “too far gone.” And we don’t usually see them active in society anymore. They are the ones locked up inside miserable holes, sometimes for decades.
However, these stages are never mutually exclusive. In fact, one can overlap into several of them at the same time, especially if they discover the mystic’s stage. It’s kind of like personality types. In that, there is no one fixed model, into which we all belong. The whole system is dynamic, and therefore we can shift our tendencies, our personalities. And this is especially true of children.
Be that as it may, this is all of course one crazy person’s opinion. And so can be taken or left. It cannot be. They say that don’t they. What? How? We don’t know. But it’s magnificent.
On Being Weird
When people say “you’re weird,” to me that means nothing except a compliment. I think it’s the highest honour when you’re being called weird. Nobody should be ashmed of it. Being weird means you stand out. You’re unique, peculiar, or in other words, interesting.
Of course, there are two branches of being weird. One is the negative sense, the other is the positive. But I figure that majority of the occasions, even when it’s intended to be taken negatively by someone, I try to take it well and say thank you. It means you’re zapping someone’s pressure points. You’re keeping them on their toes so to speak, which is a phrase I’m borrowing from the late George Carlin, a comedian.
Being weird also has the advantage of getting rid of people if you play your cards right. That is if you want to get rid of them. Let’s say you’re in a party you think is fucking lame. So, you throw some fuel into the fire by shouting something embarrassing right the moment the music stops. And so suddenly, all eyes are on you. You can then make an “impressionistic” exit if you so choose.
But there is a deeper sense in which being weird not only makes the people around you hooked on what you say or do, like a great performer, you have the capacity in those moments to really affect people and make strange impressions that ordinarily would be difficult to surface in an ordinary social situation.
I’m talking about spirituality in particular here. As I’ve experimented this first hand, but you have to be subtle in your interactions. And the “subtle art of being weird,” is I think one of the most important attributes a human being can have.
Because it enables social situations, though rare, that “unnerves” the moment. Where you see an honest rascal in front of you, who does not seem to care whether they are embarrassed in front of you. I know, I’m being weird. But life is weird. It’s damn strange. In fact, nothing is more peculiar than the cosmos. The more we seem to have it wrapped in terms of how it works, it surprises us with new discoveries.
And one philosopher went so far as to say that whenever we look into the universe, the universe has to escape its own examination to get away from us. It wouldn’t do that if we stopped chasing it. Now how’s that for weirdness?
It means essentially that we will never stop discovering new things. And that to me is the supreme weird. So, there is definitely no harm in being weird.On the contrary, the whole mystery of life is based on things being odd, out of place, confusing, and baffling. But people are not readily to admit that they are just rascals, a bunch of goofballs going around pretending to be serious.
And so this is where I come into the picture. To remind you, that things being weird, is the same thing as their vitality. The occasional surprises that come our way, are absolutely essential to the game of life. Without them, the whole system would’ve committed suicide a long time ago.
But what’s weird in this, is that the number one rule that we play, whether we’re aware of it or not, is that this game is not a game. Instead we’re morbidly serious, especially in church and in a court of law. Why is God so uncomfortable with chuckles in his presence? I think that’s fucking weird!
Well anyway, weirdness definitely has its place in matters of social, societal, scientific, philosophical, or every which way you can think of. But people who want to claim that we should take things seriously, well I agree with them up to a point. There’s such a thing as too serious. And that’s where I begin to have problems.
If you want to claim that existence is ultimately serious, then you can’t really come to terms with the fact that our brightest and most cherished moments, involve laughter.
You’re a stuck up stuffy skeleton if you think that existence is a serious business, with a serious goal. Sure, it can be fun in its own way to consider things being more than trivial, but being trivial and being playful are two distinct things to me in this regard. In fact, I equate playfulness or play with the highest sense of being there is. Going as far as to claim that you are God in disguise, pretending to be your ego. How’s that for weird?
Wisdom of the Insane
I find that madness, can ultimately be divine at times. That is to say, it can show us more than just what it appears as. The depths can give insight to the person going through it, and they can in turn inspire others with that insight. A lot of people are not aware of something called “sensitivity to the forces.” So I’ll try to explain that in this section.
What I mean by sensitivity to the forces is the level of frequencies one is tuned into. You see, there are countless of “radio stations” one can dial into with their minds. And the weirder the frequency, we call them hopelessly insane. Since the 20th century, people have shoved a sticker and label many of these frequencies, to the point that almost every kind of deviation in one’s cognition and psychology can be pointed out as being “sick” in some way.
Either you’re “above average” or “below average”. If you’re sad you’re depressed. If you’re happy you’re euphoric. If you’re angry you’ve got an issue of control. If you’re hopeful you’re optimistic. If you’re sarcastic you’re a pessimist. And so on, and so forth. Almost every attribute we can think of, can be nowadays substituted with a diagnostic classification. And the reason is that it supposedly makes it easier to work on these things, as if they were problems.
And so nothing strikes us more with the demand to repair it, than being crazy. But to me being crazy, is something I would not give up for the world. I’m fond of being crazy. Why? Because it gets me off many, many hooks. And I would imagine that a lot of people that have mental illnesses, while not necessarily fond of their condition, nonetheless have this distinct attitude of “being nuts”, that they would not easily shed. And that is why I distinguish having mental illness from being insane.
The latter can be highly luctrative, depending on how one uses it. It can be contributing to creativity in large parts. It can make one see more in things that would otherwise be easily dismissed. So being insane has tremendous value in many people’s lives.
But being insane can be fun, provided you know how to handle it. I know many people who are full of zest, and life, because they have a screw loose. And I speak for myself when I say that I enjoy it. And people who don’t see that life itself is crazy as crazy can be, are themselves crazy in a different sense.
So what is the condition of being insane if we exclude usual mental illnesses? Well, ponder for a moment, and ask the question: for what reason would people stare at you like you’ve got a horn growing out of your forehead, and start scoffing at you and arguing against you immediately? Or we could put it in Christian terms: for what reason were the heretics in the middle ages burned at the steak? What is that great herecy?
Well one thing comes to my mind. And that is that if you claim to anyone that you’re God. But this is the thing I’ve been trying to put forward with all these articles of mine. That we’re ALL God in disguise, pretending to be ourselves, with all our unique problems. And nothing is more insane, historically and present day accounted for, than that.
And that is why people are apt to stay quiet about it. Because the consequences are feared, especially that your family or relatives might call the white jackets on you after spilling the beans. But this claim has been throughout time, suspect and prone to stoning, crucifiction, burning at the stake, murder, and as said, admitting one to the hospital.
But this knowledge, that one is the eternal universe, is the goal of most spiritual practices. That is really the inner secret of it. And so it strikes me rather odd, how people are at the same time trying to get to the point at which they can be labelled as insane, while trying to prevent others from being that. But of course, they don’t know that. Even I don’t know that. I’m just insane. And if there is any wisdom in that, it’s that the cosmos is more strange, that anyone could or will ever imagine.
I am drifting in a bliss of unknowing. The never-ending whispers of eternity calling out to me. I’m fading away slowly. Into the known unknown. Will there be anything left of me afterwards? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe someone out there somewhere will make the reference to this batshit insane being. Until then, see you in another life.
L.
P.S. I like noodles.
