I sat in a room full of very
well-behaved financial professionals and analysts wondering why no one was
going insane. It was a day like any other and it was a financial conference in
Manhattan didn’t suddenly give in to the orgiastic wills of the dozens of
assembled people.
Most of us lose our minds at one
point or another but almost always too slowly to register to the outside world.
We let our own fears and disappointments torture and kill us, carving our minds
and souls to shredded pulps.
Given the state of the world, I’m
surprised more and more people aren’t dropping out of civilized society by
going crazy. Many times I find myself in a situation where people’s acceptance
of what’s given to them or the state of their surroundings is maddening and
ought to result in a violent outburst of creative violence, but it never
happens. And if it did, it would never be contained enough to be justified and
righteous.
So even though I sympathize with crazy
to the nth degree and feel the temptation to bring that measured and sane
violence to our insane world, I can’t stand the people who force their
insanity on the world around them.
The people who scream and rave in
public, who throw themselves in front of trains or off of buildings, are
childish egotists who think they are special enough to force others to notice
them and rearrange their lives for them. You have every right to be crazy and
are probably right to be insane, but force yourself on others and you’re not
better than the rest of the cruel, cruel world, probably worse. That is one
reason we have art, music and literature: it’s how we turn the pain of being
alive into something worth living for.
You have to embrace your insane
rage in the right way. The only worse than letting your insanity kill you is
letting it make you an egocentric asshole first.
