Insanity

I confess that I wonder if it's an odd defect of the nature of reality that being at an asylum while not being insane is very disconcerting and even frightening while being at one while insane, though temperaments can vary, may in fact be comforting, or even fun.  It is one thing to walk in and see the elephant in the room - that is, that everyone is in restraining straps and likely heavily drugged to pharmacologically suppress what would otherwise be a manic paroxysm. It is another thing to walk in the room and see pink and yellow polkadot elephants, or better yet, think oneself to be an elephant. Once again, the former would be at very least disturbing, while the latter would be like visiting a circus or even euphoric. What I do not intend to suggest is that insanity and sanity have been inversely misnomered, but that perhaps we do not give the insane as much credit as they deserve. Perhaps those scribbles on the wall, albeit a very padded wall, is some incredible cryptogram, which if broken, contain untold treasures of knowledge. Maybe the voice in their head did not intend to write "murder" backwards, but was simply trying to let the world know how passionate they are about "red rum."  Is it possible that their seemingly uncontrolled flailings and jerkings are actually an interpretive dance to convey, in a most unfortunately carnal and hindered way, their present elation and simultaneous sorrow that we cannot be experiencing the same. Perhaps what we see as quarantine and isolation in sensory deprivation solitary confinement is actually just the respite they needed and got us to build for them, in that while we see a world of dim and pale pastel colors soaked and obscured by grayness, they see an overstimulating world of psychedelic pulsating colors and occasionally need to be shadowed away from this so as to not truly go insane in there so-called insanity. All of this of course is mere speculation, and maybe psych ward patients really do just need some mild tranquilizers and Styrofoam padding to prevent their body from becoming as lacerated as they're mind. But it is good to question assumptions sometimes to reassure one's self that they really are sane. I suppose the best reassurance in the matter is that, to the sane, some things seem, and are indeed, irrational while to the insane everything seems rational or everything seems irrational. Does this seem rational to you?  And that is just the point, because it would and should to both groups. We actually have to transgress to the truly irrational to find a distinction; otherwise the overlap would produce many false negatives and the groups would be virtually indistinguishable.  We can, indeed, thank the Lord for soundness of mind.