Welcome to the Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Magpie11, Padmum and I write on the same topic. Please do visit the linked blogs to get nine different flavours of the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Conrad. I suspect that he has chosen this to reaffirm that the LBC is not an insane attempt at setting the blogsphere afire.
Sanity is a relative term. What is sanity for one can be interpreted as insanity by another. Let me give two examples about which I have shared with my readers in different contexts. When I left my position with a high profile company, there were people who thought that I was insane and there were people who thought that I was the only sane person in that organisation. Similarly, when I invited my father to come and live with me, there were family members who thought that I was insane and just a couple of them who thought that I was not.
Let me give another great example and reiterate that sanity or insanity is in the eye of the beholder. Fellow LBC blogger Grannymar considers me daft. That is a polite way of saying that I am insane. On the other hand there is another LBC blogger, who modesty prevents me from naming, who thinks that I am the sun, the moon and all the stars in the universe. I leave the matter with my readers to decide whether I am or not. I am comfortable with either definition as I know that it is just relative from points of view.
Seriously, let us take a look at a condition called Synesthesia. I suspect that this was the condition that put Vincent Van Gogh into a lunatic assylum. Others thought that he was insane. Don Maclean has a different take on it. He concludes the song with:
Now I think I know what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they’re not listening still.
Perhaps they never will…
Please listen while seeing this fantastic video and decide whether Vincent was sane or insane or the world around him was sane or insane.
You are daft in the nicest possible way!
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:54
Thank you MGM! That is wonderful to know.
Hey, am I the one who thinks you are the Stars and Sun and Moon and Swiss Cheese? LOL
I think your view of the relative judgments of sanity are right on. I kind of approached the topic in a similar manner and tried to unravel part of what may be behind those judgments. It was kind of crazy to try it and I should have left it to Ashok to do that!
As for Van Gogh, sane or not (or if the question really matters), he brought us a glimpse into a world of extravagant beauty. If that be insanity, perhaps we should all flip out periodically.
Conrad recently posted..Sanity
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:54
Conrad, if you are, you have kept it well hidden. I would not mind very much if you too join that elite club though!
Your post is no less awe inspiring. It created enough stimulus for me to leave you with a challenge!
This post is a perfect example of synchronicity! You aren’t going to believe this, but just yesterday I watched the movie “Lust for Life” that is the life story of Vincent Van Gogh! It is one of my favorite movies, and shows how he honed his artistic talent. There are some who feel that he struggled with something like bi-polar disorder. A friend of mine who was diagnosed with a similar disorder, had an artist sister who was bi-polar. When she was on the “manic” side of her depression, she would create the most amazing art!
In the case of Vincent, I agree with the feelings expressed in the song that he was to beautiful of a person for this world. He was too sensitive for the hatefulness of humanity. I do think he had serious mental illness, but I also think that he took the pain and troubles of the world upon himself to such a degree that he couldn’t remain sane! If you haven’t seen that movie, check it out. He happens to be one of my favorite artists! (But I am partial to impressionism)
Delirious recently posted..Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium- Sanity
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:49
I will certainly see the movie, now that you talk about it so highly.
As the member of the family that thought you were crazy to look after the old man, and by the way nothing has ever changed, don’t go looking for compliments because I know how you are suffering for your sanity, your loving blogging friends will never know how you are suffering for your sanity, go for it big bro, you are a better man than I will ever aspire to be.
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:48
Another Vincent in a different plane!
We’re all insane. That’s the definition of enlightened?
J
Jody recently posted..The Family of Man
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:47
But of course! You have to be mad and drunk with joy to be enlightened. Till you reach that stage, you are burdened.
You already know my opinion: We’re all a bunch of nuts. Sanity lies in realizing that.
Thank you for the video. It touched my heart. My favorite Van Gogh quote is,
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Voting
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:46
That aspect is what synesthesia talks about. Patients with that condition cannot make other ‘normal’ people understand the vision.
I have revisited this post, Ramana. It has layers and it moves the soul.
Conrad recently posted..Sanity
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:45
Since your comment, I went back to my post to see what possibly could have moved your soul. I haven’t been able to find that. Unless you mean about Vincent. Yes, Vincent’s story is capable of moving any soul.
Ramana, a mistake easily made – and made by most your readers and the LBClers writing on the subject: Sanity is NOT to be painted in either black or white. There are shades. Many. On the spectrum of colour. As any painter will tell you. Go down to the seashore. Watch the interplay between the sea and the sky, the horizon. You will go from between dark blue, green, grey to white. Within seconds, within one gaze.
I truly hope I am not bringing down the mood but I fear that there is too much attempt at simplifying that which is complicated in the world.
U
Rummuser Reply:
April 23rd, 2011 at 19:46
Three quotes Ursula, despite knowing your aversion to them. Why reinvent the wheel as I believe!
I actually wanted to start my post with the first one.
“You must always be puzzled by mental illness. The thing I would dread most, if I become mentally ill, would be your adopting a common sense attitude; that you could take it for granted that I was deluded.”
~Ludwig Wittgenstein.
I subscribe to that view as I had explained in my post, that there are those who consider me deluded and those who do not. I personally believe that I lie somewhere in between. My bringing up Vincent Van Gogh was precisely to highlight the fact that till all the information is available it is not easy to call some one deluded. Synesthesis was not discovered during Vincent’s time.
Now for the second.
“I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life.”
~Sherlock Holmes, or rather Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Let us just replace Watson with Ursula shall we?
Now for the swan song.
“In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.”
~Oscar Wilde.
I can not think of any one anywhere without an opinion of the other. Can you?
The line between insanity and genius is very thin. The problem with most of us is the opinion that ‘I know best’!
When you stop and understand why someone doesn’t want to take your advice/opinion then you move away from the value judgements that we make about sanity.
You may be ‘crazy’ but who said that you are not sane!!
Padmini recently posted..World Sparrow Day
Rummuser Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 17:57
I am willing to accept that I am crazy but not insane. That is, if you insist, though I am unable to find any difference!
Ramana, you make me smile. I don’t actually have an “aversion” to quotes. I just often think it such a pity that people use them instead of wording their own observations. I wonder what Oscar Wilde would make of the fact how often he is quoted. Will address the subject – promises, promises, promises – on my own blog.
My Watson to your mission control: Firstly, thanks for responding at some length. I’d go one further than Wittgenstein. Dear god, Ramana, Wittgenstein. Another subject which will have to wait. Transports me right back to my youth. We cut our teeth on Wittgenstein. Some of us forgot to spit them out. Wittgenstein: Like him, like you I dread going insane. Not because of the actual factual diagnosis but because it gives other people control over you (see “lunatic asylum”). It really is quite quite dreadful how easily one can be locked up. I do not wish to romanticize the olden days but there is a lot to be said for leaving “the village idiot” be. And if someone cuts their ear off, or (Nietzsche) embraces a horse on the street – why not? I am not a scientist but if I were I’d delve into that grey mass of ours, the brain, (which I also believe to be the seat of our soul), and try and work out how those synapses fire. The whole chemistry of what makes us who we are. Naturally, it’s a lost mission. And there is comfort (to me) in the thought that we will never crack that nut of what makes each individual tick. What makes us different from each other.
On your Oscar Wilde quote: I don’t think it’s one of his better ones. It’s witty. But then he had to uphold a reputation. Knowing all I know about the man I don’t think he meant it: He invited controversy. He welcomed it. Unfortunately, not always reciprocated. So, maybe, he got bitter. Or maybe gout kicked in. Or disenchantment with those who had little imagination.
Dear, dear, dear – now you’ve got me thinking on yet another train. One of these days I shall derail. Mark my words. Hope you will come to see me (visiting hours allowing) and hold my hand.
U
PS Bring grapes (not sour, just white or red and chilled)
Rummuser Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 18:07
My Mission Control? Ursula, I dread the prospect. I would rather you be my ground control – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFks9A9TCF0
“What makes us different from each other?” I shall attempt to answer that in our next week’s LBC post.
You have my assurance that if you ever derail, I shall indeed come and hold your hands. Visiting hours be damned. I am likely to be an inmate too. I am sure that there will be many visitors who will bring lush Indian table grapes.
Ramana, the movement of the soul by art is often not just the piece itself, which in this case is what moves me, but the framing of the art piece. The setting showcases the work and I am moved by your sense of art framing as well as Vincent.
Conrad recently posted..Sanity
Rummuser Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 18:08
Thank you Conrad.
Indeed, there is a very thin line between sanity and insanity. And genius. As you say, the definitions are very much in the eye of the beholder. Also, very much in the eyes of the surrounding society. Many completely sane people have been incarcerated for decades because someone decided they were insane.
nick recently posted..Bed hopping
Rummuser Reply:
April 24th, 2011 at 18:09
Nick, we have many such cases in India with the prime motivation of grabbing property.