The Stink of Madness
Nothing makes me feel so solidly sane as a brush with true insanity. Whether it's the schizophrenic gentleman smoking copiously and gesturing wildly while he converses with his invisible companion at the coffee house or the frothing-at-the-mouth attack mode of fundamentalists lunging for the throats of those who don't believe as they do.
I'm not quite certain from where the phrase "stink of madness" comes. An internet search turns up nothing of consequence. But after brushes with the two above scenarios, within hours of each other, I'm so struck by the accuracy of this phrase ... that madness might actually create a scent, a retch-inducing aroma ... that I'm shocked it has not already been purloined for the title of a book or poem. {Perhaps it will be soon, by me.}
The hallucinating man: unwashed. Unkempt. Reeking of cigarettes and body odor. Clearly off his meds, assuming he has ever been on any medication (which in this self-righteous, money-grubbing country is as unlikely as it is likely). He was just frenetic enough to make me uncomfortable. When he hove our way, seated at our table in the shade, I instinctively uncrossed my legs and put my hands in my lap. I was aggrieved, for him, and for us. Who cares for this man? Does anyone keep track of him? Love him? He's not being nurtured. Does he even have a home? How badly will I hurt him if he tries to hurt us?
And then later this afternoon, I watched in slow motion as a stand for free thought in the belly-button of the Bible Belt folded. Good people, wanting merely to assemble freely here in the great "Land of the Free," being forced to disperse and hide for fear of retribution over their views. Views that do not include belief in god. Americans, who pay taxes and contribute widely to the community in which they live ... being forced to stop meeting and discussing free thought. Because such things are viewed, in their tiny little town filled with tiny little minds, as the "devil's work" by those who believe in a Judeo-Christian deity.
It rankles my sensibilities, offends my sense of equity, of freedom, those bullwarks of American democracy -- not theocracy. And I smell my own anger and their fear on my skin, combined into a sour stench that I cannot outrun or bathe off.
Who is the more mad? The mentally ill man who sees the invisbile, the neofundamentalist bullies who strong-arm their will on neighbors and fellow citizens, or me ... who wants nothing more than for us all to abide by the basic principles promised in the Declaration of Independence? I suppose we are all equally mad ... trying to force this recalcitrant world into images we find palatable and safe. And none of is on the same page about to accomplish that ideal. At least I am aware of the consequences. Am I the only one?