"Sanity"
The quote below reminds of how we can’t take ourselves too seriously or think ourselves too important. It also reminds us that if we “KNOW” we have the ‘right’ and only answer, we probably are a bit delusional and we have certainly cut off the possibility of any true dialogue with another—this goes for people as well as countries.
The quote is from Thomas Merton the great writer and Trappist monk. Google the title “A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann” and you can read more (and I would encourage you to do so). It’s a quote that will make you think – or at least it should!
"I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or end in itself. The "sanity" of modern (humanity) is as about useful to (us) as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If (we) were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of (our) absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of...survival. But if (we remain) sane, too sane...perhaps we must say that in a society like ours the worst insanity is to be totally without anxiety, totally "sane"."
From "A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann" by Thomas Merton, Trappist monk & writer [quoted in both "Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander" and "Raids on the Unspeakable"]
{Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962) was head of the "Department for Jewish Affairs" in the Gestapo from 1941 to 1945 and was chief of operations in the deportation of three million Jews to extermination camps. He was tried for his crimes against humanity in 1961.}
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I like. I feel less sane the more embedded I am in things of the institution. The great writer, Jonathan Swift, died in an asylum. Not sure what his issue/s was/were, but it seems to be one of the great paradoxes of life. I also know that the scripts we are given (at an early age) can and does lead to insanity in many, but those of us who dissent from those prescribed scripts tend to make sense of it all, and sometimes with a cost, whether it is our souls or something else. "Some say I suffer from mental illiness...this is not true: I enjoy every minute of it!!"
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