MAD The Sanity of
Written by Alain de Button Designed by Nora Ashraf Zeid
Life requires us to be very sane pretty much all the time.
On a daily basis we have to be
responsible, polite, productive, thoughtful, patient, logical, reliable
and dazzlingly successful too.
These obligation slowly crept up on us as we were
Now they are our constant realities. The problem is no one can really keep going like this over a whole lifetime.
The burdens are too great,
our minds
Unfortunately, society doesn't give us much room to
fall ap art
It wants us at the desk 9 AM sharp everyday with a PowerPoint ready to go, and the
doesn’t let up till we’re finally released to sleep past 11 at night.
So we have no option but to keep going, while on the side we may well be
drinkin
g too m uch,
ht, es of nig t odd tim a p u g in wak
addicted to the Internet,
s e v i t a sed
urselves o g n i m l ca th down wi
and developing all kinds of physical twitches and ailments.
But in truth no good life can or should go by without a few quite open incidence of complete
Rather than seeing this as an ll nes s
this should be interpreted as evidence of normality and even health.
cr
ents During our
razy mo
we might be
s and ange clothe y wearing str porch all da sitting on the ing nothing, do
seeming to make no sense,
lying in bed staring at the ceiling for long periods,
s
, g n i c n a d
e places off to strang and taking
iends new fr l a u s u un g some makin
being silly in a way one hasn't been
for decades,
, g n i t u o sh singing,
cav
or ti
ng,
Naturally, such phases won’t be easy for those around us, but we should
know how to tolerate these phases without panic as just part of ordinary life.
to have moments of breakdown and rest,
BODIES
We allow our
MINDS
we should allow similar moments for our
In any case the so-called sane world is pretty dist rbed too once one considers it frankly.
It's apparently mental set ourselves the task o destroying the planet, punishing but arbitrary leave ourselves no time work, drown in toxic m unrealistic expectations relationships and famil
health that we of energetically work to meet y economic targets, me for anything but media and develop ns about our bodies lies. No wonder we need periods of true madness as a corrective.
That said
the emphasis should always be on having a GOOD mental breakdown.
A good one is when we allow ourselves to reconnect with valuable truths that we’ve
emotions and insights that ordinary life has prevented us from investigating.
a t s c e Perhaps
contact w
ith our
se
, s s e n s s e l d e e h heedlessness,
, y s ta
exual exploration,
empathy,
ledge. or a new kind of self-know
The idea is that
we shou
ld
return from
the land
of m
a d n
sustain
ess and plant in the field of apparent sanity a lot of pretty valuable seeds that can bear fruit and
us in the periods ahead.
We should, at a collective level, give ourselves accounts of what mad episodes mean, confident that a reconciliation with the demands of the world will eventually
re-emerge.
We are not automatons,
but
h
and sy
highly complicated,
collections of proteins that needs c a r e f u l ympathetic administration
We should expect that periods of madness just DO belong to every
wise and good life.