A disclaimer: I’m not crazy
but can you really trust someone who says, “I’m not crazy”?
I mean, it’s similar to when a woman calls you dangerous
and you say, “I’m not dangerous. No, really—I’m not dangerous!”
And then she pulls-out her pepper spray.
Lately, in my life
I’ve been able to be more like myself
and it frightens some people.
They are worried about where my fictional characters come from
inside, the dark recesses of my imagination
or,
where my strange philosophies come from
that I espouse.
If I say, “No—I only write to entertain, honestly.” Am I being truthful?
Truthfully, I don’t even know—
I love to play with ideas, and ask the same question
over and over again
“Why?”
People, who are afraid of fiction, don’t read
I am afraid of people
who don’t read—
they believe they have all of the answers
and they are quick to censor,
or to take offense.
My critics
come from
under bridges, where they make their homes
and they say, “Who is that, crossing my bridge? You have to pay a toll. You can’t say that. I’m offended.”
It is laughable, really.
My critics
come from churches—
their love is conditional
most of the love, in the world, is conditional.
It is difficult to explain myself in ink
If I defend my good name, and say, “I’m a good guy,” I am being defensive, and I am guilty—certain sure.
I ask myself…
“Why do I need to defend myself?”
Why do I need to belong—
to be accepted—
when all of that has a price?
This world can kill you in a million different ways
the battle is for your mind
your self-expression is gone when you don’t have a self
They will try to take that from you
In my undergraduate abnormal psychology class, the professor told us a story
about an experiment that went bad
when Research Psychologists feigned insanity
to get committed into a psych ward.
Then they started acting normal, and asked the doctors for their release,
but they were suspected of being insane
and they weren’t allowed to go home.
They were trapped
for months
and no amount of explanation
could prove their sanity.
That was the experiment
and it took doctors from the outside
to convince the insane staff
their patients were sane.
This story horrified me
but it gave me an explanation
for how people think:
social conventions
labels
religion
positions
clothing and dress (A patient wears a straight-jacket and a doctor wears a uniform)
these monikers
dictate,
who is credible, and who isn’t
Most people don’t have a clue
like lost detectives
who believe what they are told
who the murderer is
When you think for yourself
and actually find-out
it’s an uncomfortable truth.
People are blind to reality
unable to escape
their prisons
where they hold themselves captive
in their own minds.
Intellectual Shaman 
Dangerously accurate. But I maintain a little creative insanity is a good thing. Except, of course, when it is not…!
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The artist needs to push the boundaries… if he doesn’t, he has failed. I don’t think people look at art to feel comfortable. But that could just be me… It’s good to be yourself.
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i can easily relate! keep up the good work of sharing your alternative perspective!🙏💖🙏
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Thanks, swadharma! If my perspective is alternative, it is only because I am trying to be honest. I realize this can be offensive at times, but every once in a while, I write something that causes me to smile, and that is better than being careful all of the time.
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The sad thing is your perspective is considered “alternative.” Now look who controls the planet…or not.
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Yes, I completely understand G.W. Those who constantly say they have empathy, control the planet with their moral authority. It’s a deception. Poets should try to tell the truth. Sometimes, they do.
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Excellent post, Andy! 👏👏👌👍
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Thanks Harshi! 🙂
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This is very thought-provoking and I can just imagine those doctors insisting on their sanity in the psych ward and the staff saying “yeah, yeah, everyone that comes in here says that.” It is frightening. ❤
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Yes–I remember that story vividly. It was frightening! The longer I write, it feels good to be honest, but the people I know, who read my blog, tell me I should stop writing, or write something different. This confirms that people want you to be, who they want you to be–and you don’t know this, until you start to act differently. Thanks for reading and commenting Carolyn!!!
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Labels, clothing and dress . . . frightening that they have such power. Great post, very thought-provoking.
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Yes–I usually go to the library in professional clothes, and the people outside the library ask me about my day and smile. Then I go to the library in my sailor’s sweatshirt my aunt got me. It’s ragged, and nobody engages with me. I call it my invisible jacket, because people treat me like I’m invisible.
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wait a damn minute, your not ?
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Ha Ha!
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Nice narrative
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Thanks Anand Bose!!! 🙂 I’m glad that you enjoyed it!
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Nicely said. I hear echoes of your thoughts in my own- I feel we are all mad, to some degree, collectively as a society, as a culture- there is something to terms like “mass psychosis”, or what I call ‘societal information overload’- these devices in the palms of our hands are possible the greatest single tool ever put into the hands of man, but like all tools, there are dangers to the operator.
I don’t feel our society was ready for the last 40 years. But it seems voices of dissent, of caution, or sober analysis are silenced, censored, pushed into the corner and told “bad!”
Keep on, good sir.
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RE “mass psychosis” …
The official framing of this “phenomenon” is misleading and wrong. The false hope-addicted psychologists and their acolytes want you to believe this is “just some temporary occasional” madness by the masses that has been going on since only the 20th century when it is but a spike of a CHRONIC madness going on for aeons with “civilized” people — https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
One of these mainstream psychologists who have been spreading this whitewashed reality, Dr. Desmet, also fails to see that the Covid Psyop is a TOTALLY deliberate ploy because he doesn’t think it’s ALL intentionally sinister. This makes him witting or unwitting controlled opposition.
Worst of all, perhaps, the mass formation/mass psychosis notion frames the problem as the public being a mere unaccountable non-culpable victim in this phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth…
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Thanks for reading Jeremy! 🙂
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