A friend of mine who will remain nameless (Bruce) convinced me to finally submit my paperwork to the Veteran's Administration. He lured me into it with the American Dream: money for nothing. I was assured that I'd get something for my hearing (I was a machine-gunner), something for my shoulder (6 dislocations reset by the corpsman in the field), and I should be up for some PTSD compensation. Now, I haven't got my appointment yet, so I don't know what, if anything, they'll actually award. I also want to say I don't think I suffer from PTSD and I don't want to diminish in any way those who truly do.
Anyway, I asked my friend how he knew I'd get some crazy money. I asked if I should say or do anything in particular to make sure the doctor noticed my mental state. He said, "No. Just go in there and be yourself. As soon as you open your mouth they'll know something is wrong." As much as I'm sure he was joking (I hope), for a moment I wondered if there is something going on up there. Here's the issue: If I were crazy, would I know it? Bruce is crazy. Should I take him seriously if he questions my sanity, or is it a question of "takes one to know one"? Like I said, I don't feel crazy. But if I am, would I notice it anyway? Would I think I'm perfectly sane and it's everyone else that's crazy?
Then I thought about people like St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas. The people that knew St. Francis thought he was either a saint or a lunatic. Perhaps there is a fine line there (another discussion for another time). History proved him to be a saint. St. Thomas' contemporaries believed he was an idiot. In fact they called him the "Dumb Ox" and he turned out to be one of the most respected and repeated philosophers and theologians of all time. Let's just say that Caravaggio never created paintings of the people that called St. Thomas dumb. Before I go further, just to clear it up, I'm not simply talking about a cult of personality. Yes, there are many people that history remembers and that doesn't make them sane or saints.
The question is whether or not we should be worried if the world doesn't think we're all there. After all, the Jews of the Old Testament and those in the time of Jesus measured a person's sanity by the extent that they were or were not seeking the will of God. This meant primarily the person's observance of the law. For the Greeks, the sane person was the one who exemplified the life of virtue, or those whose lives came closest to conforming to the objective good. For Christians it is basically the same as the ancient Jews. We are sane to the extent that we are conformed to the will of God. If God is Truth, the sane person is the one whose life conforms to that Truth. This is also the point of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching; that true peace, contentment, and goodness or virtue comes from being in harmony with truth. For the sake of argument, let's say this is true.
I think it's safe to say that most of the world is and probably always has been a considerable distance away from the Truth. We all fall short of the perfection of God, but there are and have been those who are not just "falling short" but who are in active rebellion against Truth. The ones who have, in Jesus' words, traded the truth for lie. We are constantly bombarded with this. If only I were thinner I would be happy. If only I were younger (or at least looked younger) I would be happy. If only I had (insert item here) my life would be complete. We fall into this consumer mentality only to have our contentment blasted when the thing that was supposed to make us happy fails or is replaced by a newer model that we don't have. That's crazy. It's absolutely insane that a material good should have that kind of control over our mental well-being.
Okay, so the world is, for the most part, insane. It's insane because it has rejected truth. All of us are a little crazy. There is a spectrum of sanity and some are more sane, some are more crazy. The crazier we are the more crazy seems normal. The crazier we are the more sane seems crazy. And course, the opposite is true. The more sane you are the more you notice insanity in its varying degrees. Since the world is almost entirely populated by crazy people, crazy seems normal and sane seems crazy. So I guess in the eyes of the world, I would want to be crazy. I would want people to think my family is odd and out-of-touch. I suppose the best compliment I could get would be a condescending smile or a shocked sneer.
The question we need to ask is where we fall on the spectrum of sanity. How do you view the world? That should be a pretty good indication.
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