Why you’d want to be mad to become too sane
Fiona O’Connell
FEBRUARY used to be the start of spring but is now officially deemed still winter. Though tell that to the daffodils in bloom beyond this country town. Or, for that matter, those of us who likewise pay no heed to seasons and other established norms. Like the local who never wears socks, even when it’s bitterly cold or wet, yet always wears a headscarf. Or the pensioner who walks miles into town to buy one item, hoofing it home for a break before hiking back in again. They do so several times a day, claiming without irony that it keeps them sane.
No wonder Monty Python icon John Cleese recently praised the Irish for being “slightly mad”. Yet many fear being labelled as such, probably because, as The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski reminds us, a primitive instinct to persecute the outsider persists. The title refers to the cruelty of releasing such a bird, knowing it will try to join its flock, which will no longer recognise him and peck him to death.
This savage tale concerns a young boy, rumoured to be Roman Polanski, hiding from Nazis in Poland during World War II.
Coincidentally, the memoir The Pianist ,on which the film of the same name by Polanski is based, describes a lunatic in the Warsaw ghetto who the Nazis never harmed because he amused them. This led the author, Wladyslaw Szpilman, to suspect that he was far from a fool, for insanity protected him.
It’s interesting that the term is generally only used these days in a legal context, pertaining to a defendant’s ability to determine right from wrong when a crime is committed. For much of what we consider sane is a cultural construct of our time and can seem unhinged in hindsight, such as slavery. Like lunatic lemmings following each other over a cliff, we copy each other and presume it must be reasonable because everyone else accepts it. Or we think we choose our thoughts, though marketing moguls and other unseen forces constantly manipulate us.
It’s why rural life has always appealed to me, for there is more space, both physically and psychologically, for people to be themselves here, the natural world acting as a buffer against branding, while the smaller scale of community keeps it real. So there are fewer people, but more depth and authenticity. While a city can feel like a sea of uniformity, where madness is treated with indifference and brutally marginalised.
But disowning the complex and fragile reality of our minds has a dark side; with a survey by St Patrick’s Mental Health Services discovering that 65pc of people believe being treated for a mental health issue is a sign of personal failure. Despite our supposed liberalism, there is still a stigma attached to mental illness. Worst of all, it often prevents those who need help from seeking it.
Time for all our sakes we drop the crazy concern with conforming and neurotically obsessing about our image. And no need for someone to say it’s spring to act as mad as a merry March hare.