How Sane Are We?

Caution: This is a long post and the ideas discussed in it are strictly personal... They will make you think of things, strange things, but in the end, they are opinions and you have every right to disagree!

One of the accusations that are directed my way is that I am a very sociable person! My friends always claim that I have no problem opening up and discussing various topics with random people at any time and at any place!

They are totally right! Moreover, I think this is the main reason for that: Talking to others, many others, about different things only allows us to grow more and gives our rather restricted brains to grow both horizontally and vertically in thought and creativity!

A few days ago, after suffering a very bad nervous breakdown, I found myself seriously thinking about the thin line that passes through sanity and insanity.

I then started talking to few of my “thoughtful” friends about this issue and their view of it by asking them: How do you know that you’re not insane?

Let me assure you that I imagined getting a strange look in return and maybe a comment on how my crazy brain works! Instead, I was surprised to find myself in an intriguing discussion about the borders of sanity!

Take this line for example: “They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” It is true and very accurate in illustrating how sanity vs. insanity is almost a never-ending debate with no clear cutting edges for an answer!

Whatever you may think of this subject, one thing will always stand uncorrected: the difference between sanity and insanity is very often arbitrary. There is no clear borderline. It is a thin zigzag line and we use socially acceptable behavior as the major criteria to differentiate.

Dictionaries around the world define insanity as “the condition of someone who is senseless and extremely foolish.” This declares that insane people are those who challenge the rules of society and do not fit in with the “normal way of life.” But what counts as a “normal way of life” anyway?

Someone told me, just the other day, that insanity happens when we lose control over the mind i.e: when the body takes control over the mind and our reactions are not at all studied or thought about... But that makes many of us insane... No?

I think I am there.. Three steps away from the mental hospital, many steps away from sanity.. But that's just me...

How sane are you?

Joke: You know you’re insane when ☺
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