I think a lot of people would like to deny the strength of our animal heritage,
constructing shields and camouflages by way of an ordered & diluted
existence which mortgages itself on the predication that there's a reliable
internal & dependable logic which is not only driving the civilisation
express but which will redouble to protect you when your working days are
numbered. It's there alright, our whole way of life depends on it, but always
simmering beneath the surface are the latent forces, not necessarily the deadly
ones which put you in a cold sweat, but the simple need to throw off the mask
and engage in some society-dismantling reverie or other.
One
thing to note about 'rules' and 'norms' is that they are disciplinary ideals
which are almost always observed rigidly and with palpable discomfort; it's a
man-made straightjacket artificially imposed to promote group cohesion and with
that develops the herd-think which funnels collective thoughts down predictable
channels. People become wired into a way of living which is stultifying &
claustrophobic but their body's need oxygen by way of liberating transference of
something elemental; that thing which reminds them they have a pulse and
unearths deep down some vital chord that connects them to the essential flow of
things.
Most animals in the wild live an intoxicating existence where
each day's bread is a deliverance which offsets for another dawn at least their
extinction. I'm pretty sure they're conscious of that much at least, else why
would they be so damn good at forestalling it. But they're afforded the
liberation of the chase, they satisfy their needs and they bed down for the
night starting the whole cycle over again yet it is at all times a simple gut
reaction which is oblivious to itself moving through times dimensional arrow
& unlumbered by those complex knots of abstraction, which paradox-wise
divorce us from that simple rootedness or 'glueiness' observed in primate
gatherings.
But, being human, things for us can never be so 'free-flowing', our own complexity assures
that wedges will be driven between us, irrespective of our best intentions; our
heads are too crammed full of information, themes, obscurities, wicked shards
scattered here and there, memories too remote from another - which is why the
miracle of engagement often takes us by surprise and we see and sense and
recover ourselves as social animals, noting too that left any longer we may
become beings of a different stripe dallying too long over the bright animal
tempest within & savouring it's seductive freedoms.
It's a fine line at times and most folk occupy a happy medium point where their
'biorhythms' are co-equal and complimentary with those around them; on account
of which they can normally melt effortlessly into their social surroundings.
Others are wound up like a corkscrew (maybe not habitually but certainly on
occasion); exuding an ominous intensity like there's a hurricane within awaiting
to be unleashed. Then of course, there's all kinds of intermediary points
between, the terminus and end point of this sliding scale of gradations is
'insanity' proper I reckon - when you find yourself hooked up to the mother of
all internal tempests.
You've heard the saying; 'never prod a man when
his back is up', well I think most folk know when someone is about to blow a
gasket and they steer clear accordingly; a well-honed survival instinct, and for
good reason. Much of the literature you read on all this focuses on the products
of the mind 'in delirium' and much wonder is had from a psychological
perspective vis-a-vis 'how can you think that, that's plainly delusional' (and
so on) but I've come to the conclusion that the mind is simply projecting onto
reality a theme which meets the correspondingly powerful alterations of the
physical body within.
Sooner or later the mind's attempts to contain the
forces built up inside meets a mental hurdle (consensual reality) and in order
to forestall a self-combustion of sorts simply sweeps aside the pre-existent and
sets up for itself an alternative (and possibly self-healing) 'ideoscape' - you take to the desert - it's
just like opening a valve or two where excess energy is allowed
circulate;
Handled correctly and recognising the process for what it is,
this could be an important creative juncture, whereas mistaking the 'operation'
for a real world development invariably leads to genuine 'sickness'. Most people
I've met who've been through a 'psychosis' can appreciate the distinction been
drawn here - as it is the first thing you have come to terms with when
transitioning from wakeaday mode to that of 'experient', not to mention they're
very survival depends on successfully negotiating it. The ego is autocratically
building up a new world for itself but the dangers that lie along this path are
enormous hence (at times) the genuine concern from the psychiatric 'policing'
apparatus.
I mean in order for the optimum conditions to emerge which renders you
susceptible to insanity via excessive cogitation there has to be a degree of withdrawal and
alienation in there, perhaps. Then again you could pull yourself away not from
any disillusionment but with an in-built preference just for your own company; a
time away to allow your thoughts mature and progress; something that could never
happen were you to be constantly interrupted by the comings and goings of all
the social clutter out there.
Many people slip into this strange world
and they come from all walks, with all types of general worldviews, political
persuasions or even religious beliefs. Having spent a ridiculous amount of time
chewing cigarettes and blowing the breeze with complete emotional crash-cases
who are trying to pick up the pieces after an 'out of control' "psychosis" the
one thing that struck me was their overall awareness of the body in space, of
the presence of other people, as though it were an intrusion of some sorts to
have people hop into their personal space.
They likewise have an
inordinately developed fifth sense vis-a-vis what kind of 'humour' or 'state of
mind' a person walking into the room may be in precisely because the comfortable
bubble of solitude to which they are accustomed may well be shattered were a
gregarious, talkative type to enter - they are emotionally attuned to their
environment, hyper-conscious of the smallest gesture or shift in tone of whomever
is near them; but by and large they are not lumbered by any 'fixed ideas' or
distorted 'world-views' as this appears to be consequent to the actual manner in
which a person succumbs first to so-called mania and then to the 'psychotic' or
insane stage itself.
The shift happens almost entirely on the back of
excessive rumination, thinking too much about a particular thing, trying to find
answers for it, missing out sleep and in fact allowing the dream mechanisms of
the night-time brain slip into active mode whilst they are conscious. Thus you
will hear voices or hallucinate and the story-making mechanisms of the
unconscious will slowly penetrate your wakeaday life until you find yourself
after two or three days of such exposure attempting to juggle, then process, all
the sensory impressions which an over-heated brain is setting before
you.
I think myself it's a waste of time to actually attempt any
generalisation of what 'type' of character an insane person might be other than
the fact that they are people who have a propensity to not 'shut down'
regardless of what they're doing. A lot of the time I came across real
workaholics; a pharmacist with no religious convictions or any strong political
views but just someone who was devoted entirely to his business; simply
overworked himself and slipped into a period of wild manic activity.
Another an architect who had all sorts of varied study interests but
who simply seemed to succumb to 'too much thinking' - really, the possibility of
making generalisations falls flat and the only psychiatric constant here relates
to how the brain is wired internally (enlarged ventricles, dopamine pathways
etc) and to a great extent this is true as evidenced by the fact that once your
given a blast of one of their concoctions you will be immediately doused out of
your hyper-energised condition. The embarrassing reality for many health
professionals is that most of the people I've talked to actually savour their
condition and don't wished to be cured or medicalised away from it - a lot don't
of course and they find the whole experience overwhelming and horrific but you
will find with many in the bipolar 'insanity' spectrum a great reluctance to
allow themselves be drawn out of their 'highs' through medication.
The
reasons for this are pretty simple and that is because there is an addictive
quality attached to having your entire brain mobilised or at least a
significantly larger proportion of it firing off it's batteries of neurons and
thrilling you with all the bizarre and wonderful connections that would never be
made available to you were you to be 'medicalised' or in normal wakeaday mode.
Everytime I've gone 'insane' which is any case a technical misnomer as it
implies a value judgement as to what my subjective state of mind is, I have more
or less effectively induced the condition upon myself - by wrestling with
problems indefinitely and simply refusing to go asleep on them. In time, you've
no intention of giving yourself over to 16 hour waking days simply because there
isn't enough hours in that day to get done what you need to get done.
When a problem becomes not so much intractable as actually beautiful to
behold when presented in solution, hours can be spent motioning it about
inserting it here there and everywhere - it's a question I feel (at least for
myself) at simply having the satisfaction at uncovering a 'certainty' - a solid
fact through the application of pure logic which paradoxically occurs in a state
of mind that were you to present yourself to a DSM bearing psychiatrist would be
regarded as 'insane'. But once you can filter out the type of thought processes
which add a delusional component to the entire experience there shouldn't be any
danger of this happening - given enough practice the mind can develop all manner
of internal stratagems which keep these 'ego-boosting' wishful fantasy type
modes of thinking at bay and keep itself honed in to the task at hand.
Insanity on a physiological level is simply having your brain lit up
like a Christmas tree (as is the case when patients in the condition have been
run through an MRI) with almost all of the component parts actively engaged in
the business of processing 'awareness' - what an individual does with that
condition is entirely dependent on what capacity or strengths they've developed
which will help them overcome a sensory 'overload'. You just have to have
certainty in the capacity of the rational 'you' to sustain itself in that
environment; to be able to overcome the often conflicting messages which are
being produced.
To revise the definition of those 'susceptible' I would
say it would simply embrace folk who for whatever reason find they need to get
to the bottom of something pretty badly and are prepared to put in endless hours
labour in order to do so; sometimes this might mean 'religious' folk who can
after all be quite obsessive in their views or it could mean highly disenchanted
folk who are so naffed off with the political environment in which they have to
persevere that they feel they must tear apart the entire edifice rafter by
rafter; only happy until their practically knee-deep in the smoking ruins of
it.
'Insanity', properly conceived, is standing aside uncritically (or complacently)
and letting the whole juggernaut (of 'civilization') effectively wash over you
until one fine day your caught up in some unexpected slipstream of it's
movements and flushed into oblivion for reasons you failed to apprehend - you
may not have 'gone insane' from a technical & psychological standpoint but
your studied indifference has contributed to your own downfall just as surely.
People need to have their senses on full alert and by that I mean simply
understanding at the very basic level what kind of society and world they live
in - and this obviously entails a consideration of humankind in it's dualistic
role of both primeval primate (something of an irreducible condition) and that
of a thinking, enculturalised ape whose complex institutions have evolved
incrementally, contingently, but, on the whole, quite logically.
Most
folk (on a global level) don't have the opportunity to avail of the type of
education that would give them the wherewithal to comprehend the grand forces
that animate geopolitics and so, for many, the default position adopted is one
of sceptical disavowal ('they're all crooks on the make' blah blah) - but this
attitude obviates the thousand and one preceding struggles which had our many
beneficial and protective statutes erected to begin with; laws which protect,
nurture and reflect our concern for individual (& collective) human rights.
Those cut from the loop in this sense are also not in a position to
appreciate the struggles which are daily on-going between those attempting to
uphold the principles of positive legislation & those who wish to take
advantage of these laws, bend them to their own purposes or else invent new ones
which will achieve the same exploitative result. Some 'greybeards' see corporations
as 'sociopathic' entities, which to a large extent is true, as though they are
also massive employers & tax-generating revenue gatherers whose proceeds are
redistributed through government exchequers thus indispensably contributing to a
'buoyant economy', the larger ones will have a phalanx of international trade
lawyers & sundry technical experts whose sole purpose is to construct
arguments not on any avowed principles of 'truth' or 'justice' but concerned
merely with profit maximisation.
Thus the WTO is created (arguably) as a
corporate Trojan horse to facilitate a supposed 'free trade' agenda while the
social principles underlying the older monitory body, UNCTAD, are whittled down
and, on the whole, disregarded. Or climate change data is filtered likewise
through the same corporate led growth engine (it's monopolisation of print
media) and consistently disavowed for fear of a market implosion in their own
sector specific area (car industry, oil giants etc) irrespective of the 'overall
picture'; i.e. the good of the planet itself. In both these instances 'reality' is
being contested and the stakes are extremely high; in the first case a trade
liberalisation model is propounded to the overall detriment of 'third world'
producers (thus laying waste to the prospects of real, people centred
development) and in the second, if the more vociferously opposed campaigners are
correct, a catastrophic extinction level event is actually possible.
Either way, and whatever stance you may choose to take on these issues
the combatants involved (in the first instance, let us say simplistically on the
'corporate' side and on the second, on the 'campaign' side) aren't in any danger
of going insane per se, on account of the struggles they're involved in,
on the contrary they will be too animated by the very active engagement they're
participating in. They will be too 'distracted' in a sense to dwell on that space
in mind from which true insanity may emerge; they are irretrievably hooked into
a material and Symbolic universe with it's internally consistent ground rules - "actions"
will be fought through the courts, through media, through winning over public
and political approval - this is not the recipe for madness, giving your life sense and direction, but it's actual
cure.
Assuming your instincts
to be
so happily blunted
they perceive this jungle
and no more
Like a tweezered ant
levitating
blindly
above
the forest floor.
Unaware
he
has
been
Touched
