Sanity. Faith. Has the world gone mad? Or is it me?

I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world.

H.G. Wells

Sanity. What defines sanity? Some people say sanity is best outsourced to other people. Other people will tell you if you are insane or not. Other people will make you feel “normal” - whatever that means.

People seem to lose their sanity if they are isolated for a long time. People also seem to lose their sanity if they are awake for multiple nights. Doing both will drive anyone mad.

Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence?

Achish king of Gath, Bible, Samuel I, 21:15

But what does losing your sanity even mean? Are you automatically insane, if you have lost your sanity once? Can you be insane for a short period, and regain your sanity? Can you regain your sanity by sheer will alone? And what is this will we are supposed to have, anyway?

Will and free will are peculiar things. We seem to have it, do we not? And if we wouldn’t have it, what would change? Nothing? I have thought about the concept of free will quite a bit. Enough to drive myself insane, probably. But then again: did I really drive myself insane? Did I have a say in this? And who is this “I”, anyway?

Things get very weird very quickly if you start asking questions like this. I guess that’s probably why most sane people don’t particularly like asking these questions.

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then sanity must be doing different things at different times expecting the same results. That doesn’t seem right.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. I seem to be doing what seems right to me in any given moment, not expecting any results. Sanity or insanity? Probably a little bit of both.

Translations

• German translation by Der Geier

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