madness as normal
One should try to avoid being a sole carer, it'd be better to have a wife or a husband, even a half decent brother or sister, in order to be able to have someone to allow a bit of respite from the madness. Or I should say the normality of living with madness.
Maybe madness is too strong a term. It conjures up an image. No, it's not too strong.
Us humans are very adaptable, we are used to all sorts of situations and lifestyles. We are all very much the same even if we differ in what we do or where we come from. From the poorest folk living on the rubbish tips of a big city in the developing world to the richest people sunning themselves on the deck of floating palace somewhere in the caribbean. Looking between groups or cultures we all do things that another of our species may well regard as being a symptom of madness. But that other's madness is normality for that other.
Religion is a kind of group madness. It's as though if enough people say 'this is the way it is' then it must be the way it is, "how can you not believe? Your faith is madness! Mine is the true way, how can you ignore these holy books written a very long time ago." Choose any religion, it depends on the one a person is brought up to believe. Economics is similar if a bit more modern, instead of being known as a religion it's tenets are termed as the economic paradigm, the accepted economic norms of a particular point in time; what is normal today looking back will be seen as madness (or vice versa). Politics is the same: group views; sanity to one is madness to another.
Chapter 10 is a good one:
Madness or normality? Perhaps there is no difference.
Maybe madness is too strong a term. It conjures up an image. No, it's not too strong.
Us humans are very adaptable, we are used to all sorts of situations and lifestyles. We are all very much the same even if we differ in what we do or where we come from. From the poorest folk living on the rubbish tips of a big city in the developing world to the richest people sunning themselves on the deck of floating palace somewhere in the caribbean. Looking between groups or cultures we all do things that another of our species may well regard as being a symptom of madness. But that other's madness is normality for that other.
Religion is a kind of group madness. It's as though if enough people say 'this is the way it is' then it must be the way it is, "how can you not believe? Your faith is madness! Mine is the true way, how can you ignore these holy books written a very long time ago." Choose any religion, it depends on the one a person is brought up to believe. Economics is similar if a bit more modern, instead of being known as a religion it's tenets are termed as the economic paradigm, the accepted economic norms of a particular point in time; what is normal today looking back will be seen as madness (or vice versa). Politics is the same: group views; sanity to one is madness to another.
Chapter 10 is a good one:
Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body
become supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from you own mind
and thus understand all things?
Giving birth and nourishing,
having without possessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.
Madness or normality? Perhaps there is no difference.
