Can We Really Be Sure of Ourselves?
Reflections on the politics of madness, and how we may be unfairly judging others as mad while being blind to our own insanities!
Hello Dear,
I feel naturally drawn to begin this post too, as I usually begin, by expressing the hope that you are doing well. And I hope this apparent monotonic beginning is fine in a sense, since this is a natural byproduct of the conversational style I have adopted for the posts of this #NotJust Email Newsletter. And yes, I am happy to note that one friend with whom I shared a post of this newsletter said that the conversational style is one thing she likes about One Doubt Please.
At the same time, ideally, we would want to not just express hope, but also go beyond that to start every post on a more concrete positive note. So, here is something which made me happy today. A close friend of my wife was in a state of distress today; she was in a difficult situation, a difficulty which emerged due to a sudden and unexpected turn of events, leaving her highly disturbed. On learning about what happened, I just wondered whether something I wrote recently could be of some help to her. Though I was not sure whether it would help, I sent the following article to my wife.
And even though I said nothing more, my wife, who has a highly developed sixth sense and intuition in understanding me, understood that my unspoken suggestion was to share this article with her friend. So, that is what she did, after confirming with me that this is what I wanted. And after around 20 minutes or so, my wife got a very appreciative message from her friend. The friend said she liked it very much, and wanted my wife to convey her “big thanks” to me. Needless to say, I felt happy and do feel happy and grateful to write these words. 🙏😊
In a sense, this is an integral part of what we wish our thoughts, ideas and reflections to do, right? We want them to go and make a positive difference in the world, in our world. So, in case you have not, I would encourage you too to check out / read the above article. 😊
Well, speaking of the impact our ideas can and should make, I am reminded of something I was thinking of today evening. We have already discussed in the below post, how the biggest factor standing in the way of our great ideas is most likely none other than we ourselves.
Yes, I was wondering whether this has already happened to what I believe is a very good idea which occurred to me an year ago. I mean, partly due to my passionate zeal to get others to adopt the idea, I ended up adopting and expressing the idea in a wide variety of contexts, which I realize has annoyed quite many people. But that annoyance is fine, that should even be expected. In fact, if no one is flustered or unsettled, that itself might be a reason to doubt the worth of our idea. This is so, especially since really good ideas are often ahead of their time, and are seldom met with a universal acceptance.
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.” - Albert Einstein
Before we proceed, let us remind ourselves that Einstein’s observation should not let us become conceited; since there could very well be very many situations where our ideas are met with opposition since we don’t make sense, not because others don’t. 🙂Anyway, speaking of bold and unconventional ideas, let me invite you to check out this post I have written, which deals with this one facet of the problem of ideas.
Ok, so as I was saying, it is not others’ annoyance or mockery which I was bothered about, or which I am bothered about. [Come to think of it, I think I am reasonably good at being at the receiving end of admonition and mockery; this is something which my wife too finds quite surprising. And yes, something about myself which I am quite happy about.] I must say that many of my colleagues have in fact accepted, welcomed and appreciated the idea as well. So, what exactly is it which made me concerned today?
It is simply that, in my enthusiasm to express the idea and share it in various ways at various times with various people, I fear that the idea has come to be associated with me! In other words, I think the situation has so become, that if someone brings up this idea - either approvingly or disapprovingly - in our professional community, then, most people (in our small professional community) are likely to think of me as someone who either came up with or had something to do with the idea. Now, did I want this to happen so? I think it would be difficult for me to be honest with myself about this. At least, it is safer to assume that it would be difficult. But my conscious self tells me that my love, interest and passion was much more for the idea, and hardly for my association with it. Maybe or most likely, I did not want any credit at all for the idea. 😊
But either way, my fear is that the association of the idea with me has in a way sounded the deathknell and extinguished any hope for the idea to be adopted at scale. It is not about me per se, but the fact that I am just one small individual. Why would an organization, especially an organizational bureaucracy, want an idea to carry with it the identity of one of its lowly employees or members? How can we expect such an idea to pass the ruthless filter of incumbent powers which favour the status quo, of existing power structures which militate against ideas which threaten established ways of being, doing and becoming? Indeed, I am not saying this cannot ever happen, but thanks to organizational politics and the politics of ideas, implementing new ideas is already quite difficult. And if the ideas carry a close affiliation with an organizational member who is weak - and more importantly who is expected to be weak as per organizational norms, then, implementing such ideas becomes even more difficult. Which brings us to this:
An idea dies if it becomes Just Your Own. Others would not then adopt it. To resurrect the idea, it has to become #NotJust Your Own. It has to become others’ idea as well.
Yes, we have explored this aspect already, in this post (already referenced above) and in this post.
And speaking of the politics of ideas, here is a promising paper which I just discovered, on The Political Economy of Ideas.
Coming to the topic for today, I was just sitting and thinking which among the various competing ideas to explore further - and I am very happy to tell you that I have just been struck by what I believe will make for a very suitable topic, which weaves very well with the reflections shared above.
[Beginning of two pieces of reflection I wrote, one in October 2022 and another in June 2023]
The Politics of Madness
We tend to think that the tragedy of life is a world which has gone mad. Wrong.
The real tragedy is a world which is not mad enough, which is not madder than it is, which is not as mad as how unmad it thinks it is.
Yes, we are in dire need of much more madness. To save ourselves.
0) One very interesting idea I would like to explore more is the beauty of madness.
It is my submission that the politics of madness - the way society labels certain types of behaviours as madness and certain types of people as mad - is one of the primary instruments of oppression, repression and thus exploitation.
And like all effective instruments of oppression, this instrument too is invisible to the vast majority of humanity, just like it is impossible to know when a fish swimming in water is drinking water.
1) Interestingly, I think I chanced upon this idea when some concerned friends, relatives and colleagues were trying to help me, with what I thought as my brushes with heightened excitement and apparent estrangement from what we call “reality” (it would be unfair to term it as insanity). Sadly, thanks in part to my theorizations, they were not quite able to help me see my frailties, at least in those particular moments of reckoning.
2) [On a related note, this also shows one of the fundamental problems of trying to help someone who we think has lost their way; the more we attempt to encourage them to reflect on their situation and realize their mistake, the more they get convinced that their chosen path is nothing but right! This has become more so in today's hugely polarized world - or a world which is perceived to be polarized, where conversations from the heart, let alone conversions of heart, have become very difficult to come by. Of course, I am not talking about religious conversions, though, yes, every genuine conversion of heart is indeed religious as well, inasmuch as every religion is basically a belief system, supported by concrete symbols, imageries, observances and rituals.]
3) Ok, back to madness. Let me rephrase what palliative care specialist Bronnie Ware writes about death, in her 2011 book "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying". Let us apply her statements on death, with modification, to the closely related concept of madness. [Please note that these are modified statements, so these are not those of Bronnie Ware.]
4) Our society has shut madness out, almost as if it is a rare disease. This denigration leaves both the mad person and the family or friends totally unprepared for something that is inevitable.
We are all mad. But rather than acknowledge the existence of madness, we try to hide it.
It is as if we are trying to convince ourselves that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ really works. But it doesn’t, because we carry on trying to validate ourselves through our material life and associated fearful behaviour instead.
5) If we are able to face our own unignorable madness with honest acceptance, before we have reached that time, then we shift our priorities well before it is too late. This gives us the opportunity to then put our energies into directions of true value.
Once we acknowledge that madness is at once universal as well as uniquely manifested in each one of us, we are less driven by ego or by what other people think of us. Instead, we are more driven by what our hearts truly want. This acknowledgment of our undeniable mad state of being offers us the opportunity to find greater purpose and satisfaction in what we do, in who we are and want to be.
6) It is not without reason that we put people in mental asylums. Yes, it is due to insanity, no doubt. However, more often than not, it is due to our own insanity, not due to "their" insanity. Confining these mavericks in asylums is the way we have discovered to propagate the invented lie that they are mad, to hide the truth that it is we who are mad, to thus shy away from the discomfiting reality that we don't have the mental, intellectual and spiritual space to accommodate these "others" as our own.
7) But no, it is not even that it is us and not they who are mad. Who is not mad, in fact? It is just that we find certain types of madness to be tolerable, bearable, forgivable and even worthy of honour, emulation and adulation! While other - possibly equally sane if not less insane - types of madness are cast away as reprehensible, wayward, unholy and inhuman!
8) We tend to think that the tragedy of life is a world which has gone mad. Wrong.
The real tragedy is a world which is not mad enough, which is not madder than it is, which is not as mad as how unmad it thinks it is.
9) Yes, we are in dire need of much more madness. To save ourselves. In fact, one problem I have been thinking of lately: how can one get oneself admitted in a mental asylum?😊
10) “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs.
How can we encourage and embrace, and be comfortable with or at least tolerant of, more madness in ourselves and in each other? What are the various ways in which the politics of madness plays out in the larger societal sphere?
[End of the two pieces of reflection I wrote, one in October 2022 and another in June 2023]
Interestingly, yet unsurprisingly, there is a book by the very title “The Politics of Madness”, which examines how mental asylums changed the political and social power relations in 19th century England. Of more relevance to our discussion however is a chapter titled “The Politics of Madness”, from a 2018 book titled “Trauma and Madness in Mental Health Services”. This chapter explores “how knowledge, treatment practices, and public perception are shaped by the politics of the mental health field…”.
Having drawn a parallel between our attitudes towards madness and death (in points 3 - 5 above), let the book recommendation for today be the same book we referred to there: "The Top Five Regrets of the Dying", a 2011 book by Bronnie Ware. [I think I read it in 2021 or early 2022; yes, it is a wonderful book.]
Well, let me also share below the original words of Bronnie Ware, which I adapted and modified above to suit the reflection on madness.
So, let us stop here then? Thank you for your kind attention! Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments section, or at newdheep@gmail.com. Thank you again, best wishes! - Dheep.