Insanity's Stairwell

When I wrote Sanity’s Stairwell however long ago, so I made one critical error.

Throughout the piece there’s this assumption of a baseline sanity. It’s in the very title: of course we’re sane here, there, sane somewhere. Ah, how comforting it could be to consider a sanity in each one you come across.

If I were to write the piece today, it’d be Insanity’s Stairwell. And I guess I’m bringing this up today because of some reading and on further reflection, I mean honestly, I guess until the singularity hits or something — of course there’s insanity everywhere. Not that it’s bad — by definition, insanity is irrational behavior. Sanity is the guise and the thumb-pressing to suggest, well, you better do our version of irrational behavior, or you’re extra irrational.

One gets so accustomed to the teetering and the poison shops everywhere; one gets used to the relentless onslaught destroying minds everywhere, to perhaps rebuild them better, so that’s neat. Somedays and sometimes I do wish an alternative where we could go back to the more proselytized Christian lingo, since it at least comes with the churches instead of the straight jackets. And the gowns look fantastic compared to the lab coats handing some Lexapro as though one could ever suggest everything ought to be stuffed into a sterile conception of the mind, automaton, ape-man — anyway, anyway, it’s all just insanity but you have to admit some insanities are more amusing than others. And maybe I am a little biased, because the Christian variant feels a whole lot more sane than the alternatives, a whole lot closer to metaphysics than the physicians would ever want. Besides, where’s the holy splash water equivalent in the psycho-therapy dominant zeitgeist? I guess you get four loko dribbles and diagnosis.

Ah, we’re both suspended in this and typing away. If you peel back the eyes one should almost be frightened how used you get to things, like reading this. How used one could be to, well, there’s no use iterating everything. One could just wave their hands around. It’s just all so strange and for whatever reason of course it’s normal.

I love the word normal. How many a wish I’ve heard: to be normal the same as we assume there’s a sanity between all of the quiet desperate living circumstances surrounding everything.

There is no normal in the vague way it’s usually instantiated. I’ve never met a normal life and I don’t think I ever will. As though normal is something to aspire towards!

Well, anyway, some could say this is all semantics and that “sanity” leans more the same toward how “normal” is said, just a proxy of how similar you are to those around, and I don’t think you’re wrong. I am just underlining how strange without any rational basis (that is, insane) most things are, and unknown, and it’s funny if you squint, maybe. That even if you achieve this supposed similarity so yearned for, well, you’re still partaking in another circus however tamed, maybe.