Do you desire the deep things? It is widely circulated that material things will not make you happy, but this is also true of knowledge. On the contrary, books like Ecclesiastes of the Bible tell us that as we gain in knowledge, we increase in sadness. I am not holding, mind you, to an "ignorance is bliss" attitude; no one (not seriously at any rate) would rather be a fool than a wise man. But let he who seeks to be wise consider that into his own depths he may become hopelessly lost. That is where the madness lies. Because he is no longer sane who is lost in his own depths may it thus be that all genius is touched by the mad, for he does not dive deep that in the murk of the waters he knows exactly to what depth he has dived, exactly where he is when he is alone in the fathoms.
And the madman, who does not dive, but rather, sinks: all he can see around him is himself, alien to himself.
Tatiana
2:46am tuesday, 10th september
Depends on what kind of intelligence we're talking about...
But interesting descriptions, especially the madman, who reminds me so much of myself.
i try to be happy.
Tatiana
2:50am tuesday, 10th september
Do you?
Stand
3:30am tuesday, 10th september
Pretty much.
Elaine
3:57pm tuesday, 10th september
Stand, I try to read your site often.I am a psychiatric nurse on an in-patient unit who is relatively new to the field. Your site has provided me with extremely valuable knowledge to use in my work. Where all books and research are written by the so called mental health experts, mental health advocates question why there is no input from those who endure the illness. Your honesty and gift to express yourself has been more valuable to me in understanding those I serve than any other resource. While at work I had the opportunity to show your story to a paranoid schizophrenic who thanked me because he could identify so strongly with you. In over twenty years,he has been unable to have the breakthroughs in reality that you describe. I am now more sensitive to those I know sit in silence terrified to open themselves to anyone. I have also developed a sensitivity to the private hell they are enduring. Thank you, Will you respond to me or do you have more suggestions to help me?
Stand
10:01pm tuesday, 10th september
Elaine, if you have any specific questions, email me, and we'll talk.
dust
11:25pm wednesday, 11th september
I read about a medical survey that identified intelligence as almost a "contributing factor" to mental illness. Basically, the more intelligent you are, the more susceptible you are to falling into mental illness. While I don't entirely agree with this scientific conclusion, I can see the general sense behind it. Most people are simply too lazy to be mad - they don't ask themselves the keenest, most cutting questions, and so they rest easy in a world of pop culture, bright lights and attractive external images. But being alive is a strange, weird thing: we are all our own personal pioneers when it comes to charting this great unknown territory of our own life. Some people fall into step with the general climate of their times quite easily; for others the strangeness of this whole miracle of being alive is always before their eyes, and they can't believe that they are supposed to regard what the world around them everyday should be dismissed as "normal" or "ordinary". In reality, every day is a drama, every day is a new chapter you write in the long and tangled book of your life. I'm not sure who is right - the people who resign themselves to "reality" and live each day as a chore, or the people who never lose the sense of their individual life as being a personal, one-off adventure into being and find a higher degree of meaning in things that most people consider ordinary. In a sense, it's no bad thing to be submerged in yourself - the world is always filtered down to you through your perception of it, and people classed as "insane" should probably be more truthfully classed as "uncompromising" - but still, as you say in this piece, you can go too far. Probe too deeply and all you're left with is a hall of distorting mirrors - surrounded by distorted reflections of yourself. You can't look to yourself to give you a true image of who and what you really are - take that road and you end up mired in quicksand and sinking slowly to the suffocating depths in a trap of your own devising.
Tatiana
Stand
Elaine
Stand