Sanity is Overrated

Sometimes I question my sanity.

But here’s the problem I face…I don’t know what sanity actually is.

Do you…really?

I know what society tells us it is. Well, I guess that depends on which society.

The society I nurtured in would tell me the following 10 things about sanity, among others…

1. It is working at a “regular” job and paying the bills.
2. It is belonging to and supporting your local “Christian” church.
3. It is voting republican.
4. It is supporting the military.
5. It is being heterosexual.
6. And monogamous.
7. And marrying within one’s own race.
8. It means not coloring outside of the lines (of accepted societal norms…like those above and many others).
9. It is being law abiding.
10. It is accepting your lot in life (don’t try to be more than who and what you are, which according to most, outside your immediate family, isn’t very much).

Oh, and it also means, never daring to question any of the aforementioned points.

According to many of the above factors, especially that “11th” one…I am unquestionably insane. And I am quite sure many would readily agree that’s indeed the case.

In my insanity, I formulated a new definition of what it means to be sane…an insane formulation of sanity, if you will…

One in which,

1. All human-beings share the common reality of one life’s chance worth of potential impact.
2. All human-beings share the common created purpose of one life’s chance worth of potential impact.
3. What gives a human life meaning is not its degree of sanity (measured by any societal set of standards), but its realized impact over the course of this one life.

Now I realize that, according to the previous set of standards, my newly formulated definition puts me in serious need of a straight-jacket and a padded cell.

And it’s OK. Because sanity, or at least generally accepted societal definitions of the concept, keeps our impact at bay.

Sanity, or at least generally accepted societal definitions of the concept, keeps our impact at bay.

We are taught early on that it’s not for us to reason why, but to do and die…and those who reason, go awry. Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote that (except for that last part…which is 100% yours truly), about soldiers who “unquestionably” charged to their deaths. According to my socially nurtured standards that would be considered quite sane.

I’ll readily admit to going awry. I am off the farm, so to speak, and wake up almost every day, questioning. Questioning my sanity. Questioning whether THIS TIME, I really have gone off the deep end.

But doesn’t it seem a bit odd that society tells us that sane people don’t question? It’s best not to use the brain in this manner. Just accept things as they are. I believe they call it, “being realistic.”

I respectfully refuse.

Because for me this “unquestionable” version of sanity is overrated…

and inherently questionable.