“With racism, one has to be very precise not to fight racism in a way which ultimately reproduces, if not directly racism itself, at least the conditions for racism” — Slavoj Žižek
I was speaking with a friend tonight and we were talking about which countries have crazy people and I said I think the United States is full of crazy people and she said well I don’t think so and I said OK, well, I think that at least they are mad. And we agreed on that.
I am interested in methods for avoiding madness. I believe that madness is extremely common in our society. I believe that I know many people who are mad. I believe that to seek the means by which we can avoid madness is a good and high goal.
It seems to me that madness is the state of being trapped in one’s own mind/body/self. It is to establish the existence of an “in” and an “out” and to look “out” from “in.” It is to see the world as existing separate from one’s self.
Madness is characterized by mania, by the formulation of theory/ideology/models/etc. of the world and the diligent ramification of those formulations.
It takes many forms, but at its core it has the same ultimate cause, which is the formation of internal structures which prevent the escape or blending of consciousness into the external world.
One time I was camping in Montana with some good friends. We had gone into the mountains for a week, set up our tents, and hung out with the trees and the lake and the goats. It was glorious. After a few days I went out onto the peninsula in the middle of the lake and sat down to meditate for a while. I had formulated a meditation practice while living in Japan, years before, and I decided that this would be a beautiful place to sit and face myself. So I did. And as I sat and meditated, the tide of my mind rose inside of myself. My practice of meditation was in the Zen style — sitting back straight, hands in mudra position, concentrating on my breath. As my mind arose it presented me its usual carnival of distractions: worries about my health, fears about my life’s path, desires for comfort, etc. And I allowed each one to come and each one to go. Some remained fixed for longer, etc. But, as I meditated longer and my focus sharpened, I felt my mind clear, and I become aware of a wind which was blowing over the lake and over my body. And I felt myself merge with that wind, and be carried away into the sky.
I do not try to conceptualize this experience. I do not try to say that it was an illusion or an imagination produced by my brain. I do not try to say that my consciousness actually went into the wind and was carried up into the clouds. To do any of this would be madness.
What I do say is that I was carried by the wind into the sky, once my mind achieved clarity.
Now what the fuck is actually going on here? Do you think that I am crazy?
I tell you, I was carried into the sky, and it was the most beautiful feeling, to allow my consciousness to shift and morph and draw away and leave myself, to feel the disappearance of the boundary of self, to not know the difference between my skin and my face and the wind. It was transcendent, and deeply, profoundly joyful.
One of the most beautiful feelings in the world, by the way, is lying next to a lover after sex, holding them tightly, and feeling the barrier between your bodies fall away. The merging of two bodies, the sharing of consciousness.
“But it’s an illusion,” “but it’s just your brain making you feel like you’re part of their body,” etc. etc. No it isn’t! No it isn’t! This is madness. Why do you need it? Why do you need to create a reason? What drive do you have? These are not rhetorical questions. Look inside yourself and try to figure it out. Go on, go ahead. I’ve told you there’s this beautiful thing, but I don’t see you climbing a mountain! I don’t see you seeking out a lover! I see you trying to understand why there is this beautiful thing. That is madness. That is madness.
You know, I don’t think I’m mad, but I think I have been. When I’ve looked at my bank account every day. When I’ve watched the prices of stocks rise and fall. When I’ve told someone I loved that I hated them. When I cursed at a driver who cut me off. Every time, when I withdrew into myself, and I was only myself, in myself, I was mad. I was trapped.
Because I am almost nothing, compared to what is. My self, my body, my mind, is almost nothing when it is stacked against the enormity of everything. To believe that I am anything is madness. To believe this meat sack, this counting brain, is anything more than a blip in a vast expanse of God is to commit one’s self to an impossible task, which is the justification of that belief.
And this is why men build monuments. This is why men commit wars. This is why men condemn others to humiliation and indignity. It is because they are fighting to contain something which cannot be contained.
And I cannot say why this entire state of affairs exists. Why should madness exist at all? I cannot say. I cannot say. And to try to say may itself be a form of madness.
But what I can say is this: allow nonsense. Allow yourself your stories and fantasies. Stop making so much sense all of the time. Do “wrong” things, if you are compelled. How arrogant it is of you to believe you know what is right and wrong. How deeply conceited to believe you can mimic God’s scales of justice in your own mind. Your heart may know the score, but you rarely live there.
Do not free your mind, your mind is free. But you are not — you are trapped in your mind. Free yourself from your mind, and you will maybe free yourself from madness.
