Monday, November 21, 2005

tis but insanity.

"I am going to tell you a story," said Zedka.

"A powerful wizard who wanted to destroy an entire kingdom, placed a magic potion in the well from which all the inhabitants drank. Whoever drank that water would go mad.

The following morning, the whole population drank from the well and they all went mad, aprt from the king and his family, who had a well set aside for them alone, which the magician had not managed to poison. The king was worried and tried to control the population by issuing a series of edicts governing security and public health. The policemen and the inspectors, however, had also drunk from the poisoned water, and they thought the king's decisions were absurd and resolved to take no notice of them.

When the inhabitants of the kingdom heard these decrees, they became convinced that the king hgad gone maad and was now giving nonsensical orders. They marched on the castle and called for his abdication.

In despair the king prepared to step down from the throne, but the queen stopped him, saying: 'Let us go and dronk from the communal well. Then we will be the same as them.'

"And that was what they did: The king and the queen drank the water of madness and immediately began talking nonsense. Their subjects repented at once; now that the king was displaying such wisdom, why not allow him to continue ruling the country?

The country continued to live in peace, although its inhabitants behaved very differently from its neighbors. And the king was able to govern until the end of his days."

Veronika laughed.
"You don't seem crazy at all," she said.
"But I am, although I'm going under treatment since my problem is that I lack a particular chemical. While I hope that the chemical gets rid of my chronic depression, I want to continue being crazy, living my life the way I dream it, and not the way other people want it to be. Do you know what exists out there, beyond the walls of Villete?
"People who have drunk from the same well."
"Exactly," said Zedka. "They think they are normal because they all do the same thing. Well, I am going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them."
"I already did tha, and thats precisely my problem. I've never been depressed, never felt great joy pr sadness, at least none that lasted. I have the same problem as everyone else."

- excerpt from "Veronika Decides To Die" by Paulo Coelho [image on the left from booksamillion.com]

I've always wanted to put that story in one of my blogs before, but I never really had a good reason for putting it up. I guess somehow I have issues with my own freedom. Feeling restricted on what I type in my OWN blog. Its not exactly fear that I would be misunderstood, rather, its like...I'm taking into consideration the people who would be reading it...hmm...or maybe not...I don't know. I still have to further my study on myself. My own mind. For how can I start trying to understand others when I have not fully understood myself? Psychology. My dear mind, how do you work? What do you keep from me? I can only suspect that you are holding knowledge that I do not know.

I digress...now going back...

What does it mean to be crazy?

That question i just typed up there was asked in the book. And truly it made me think when i read it before. I have asked questions like that. When people tell describe me, or others, using adjectives such as "kind", "crazy" or "evil" or any of those words commonly uttered by people nowadays, do they really know what they mean? Just what do they mean by what they say? Most of the time, I think they don't know what they mean...I myself am guilty of using words carelessly, but I try as much as I could not to do that.

People classified as crazy, mad, or weird are people that are, in society's point of view, different; Talking of nonsense, acting ridiculous, doing things that are not akin to normal standards. People are often times referred to as crazy because they cannot be fully understood by others. Their actions. Their way of thinking. [picture to the right from http://user.mc.net/~spreston/pictures.html ]


If you can't beat them, join them. Majority rules. People are pressured to act like everyone else. To do what is accepted in society. Being 'different' is not a bad thing, I actually think it can be pretty cool. Its better to be weird than just be a part of the mundane crowd.
...It can get lonely though. Sad. And sometimes it is wished that one is just like everyone else, as boring as that may sound.

Who knows...it may be that 'crazy people' are the ones who are not crazy. I guess its pretty much a matter of perspective.

I've always wondered why the word 'insane' is termed such. When a person is 'sane', one is rational and considered mentally healthy. Why the 'in' in insane? is it not supposed to be good when you are 'in' sane? maybe being insane means that one's sensibility, one's reasonability is too deep. perhaps insanity is what happens when one is too sane, too in sane that people who are merely 'sane' cannot comprehend what you think. Since the 'sanes' are more in number, the insane is considered weird. an outcast of sorts.

I think crazy people are everywhere. They just don't want to show their quirkiness though. Because people can be ruthless to things they do not understand.

In Villete (the mental asylum in the book) there are 'crazy people' who could already have left the place...there are those who do not need treatment at all. Real mental cases mix together with non-mental cases who, i guess can only be considered crazy because they want to stay in a mad house. They choose to stay there longer. In Villete they are free to do, to say whatever they want because they are not boxed or hindered by the standards of society. They are crazy afterall, so they have every right to just act as they please. free from the eyes, the standards of the other. You can do what you want and other people won't care. They wouldnt mind. You're crazy.

"I'm crazy. I'm allowed to do this. I can hate, I can pound away the piano. Since when have mental patients been known how to play notes in the right order?" She pinded the piano again, once twice, ten, twenty times, and each time she did it, her hatred seemed to diminish, until it vanished completely

...now i forgot what i was to say. oh well. this would have to do for now...

I like sharing things I have read and enjoyed. For someone who cannot speak for herself well, lines from a book or just about anywhere act as my voice...gives a view of my character...my thoughts inexplicable.

yet another excerpt...to speak for what i would want to say...oh sigh.sigh.sigh...i should really learn how to talk for myself...if only i am as talented with words...if only i could say what i wish to say...

"...Do you remember the first question I ever asked you?"
"Yes, you asked me if I knew what being crazy meant."
"Exactly. This time I'm not going to tell you a story, I'll just say that insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It's as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and undertsand everything thats going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don't understand the language they speak there."
"We've all felt that."
"And all of us, one way or another, are insane."

0 Told me something

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drifting reverie posted this
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