Dude That's Insane!
It’s common for words which mean one thing to be used so often that they become a cliché, soon losing their essence. Take for example the word 'insane'. If a friend does something really fun and is telling you about it, you can be sure (even more so nowadays) to hear him say ‘insane’, AT LEAST ONCE. In our daily conversations, we often use this word as an adjective for something shocking, amazing, or outrageous. This colloquial definition of the word and its wide use has sort of lead to an overshadowing of the real, formal definition of the word, which is: “in a state of mind which prevents normal perception, behaviour, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill”.
Every society considers
some of its members insane. However, this label of insanity usually stems from
society’s failure to understand a person’s behaviour. For example, a gruesome
murder arising out of envy, quarrels or vengeance are usually not linked to
madness, but when a murder occurs without any socially recognisable motive
being found, it usually results in the person being called mad. To cite a more
recognizable example, would you consider the highly obsessive behaviour of
Monica or Phoebe’s talking to imaginary friends, from the TV show
F.R.I.E.N.D.S. as insane? No, right? I thought so. But you wouldn’t waste a
second to label the Joker insane (when in fact, he actually made a LOT of sense
on many occasions).
There are numerous books
and guidelines used to determine if a person is insane, but not a single line
of text to classify someone as being sane. Different textbooks and legal
systems define the word differently, in the same way that different individuals
define what is sane and what is not for them.
Most times, it seems as
though the relationship between insanity and sanity is like that between heat
and cold. Cold is commonly said to be the mere absence of heat. So must it be
construed then, that insanity is the mere absence of sanity?
Countless elaborate
textbooks and complete treatises exist, that describe various psychological disorders
like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, depression, insomnia,
and paedophilia, to name a few. All of these are considered to be examples of
insanity, varying in intensity from problem to problem, and person to person.
It is fascinating how much psychologists have, over the years, studied various
forms of insanity. There are over 300 major psychological disorders, right from
bipolar disorder to depression, bulimia to a mortal fear of light, psychopathy
(read: Sherlock Holmes and Dexter) to a very strange one called the
Munchausen’s Syndrome, in which the affected person feigns illness to gain
sympathy or attention. What’s even more interesting is that a startling number
of these forms of insanity are connected to sex or sexual health. For example,
there are as many as six different forms of paedophilia!
It seems that mental health
experts and psychiatrists are content to arrive at their diagnosis by
eliminating possible problems and if they run out of options, declaring the
person sane. This is worth mulling over because if ‘sanity’ is a diagnosis of
exclusion, it makes for a stellar topic for debate. It is ripe for discussion
and dissection. This is an interesting conundrum where there are literally
hundreds of ways to determine if a person is insane, but no way to determine
whether a person is sane.
Given that sanity is not
precisely defined by psychology, it is worth considering whether it actually
exists. Definitions of insanity can be wide and varied depending on various
jurisdictions (while declaring a person criminally insane) or when describing a
person with abnormal behavioural patterns. Moreover, only a tiny fraction
of behaviours associated with insanity lead to crimes.
The line separating
insanity from sanity is for individuals to draw and thereupon decide what lies
where. The lack of any credible source for distinguishing between sanity and
insanity might just be psychology’s way of telling us that we are all a little
sane and a bit insane, that complete sanity doesn’t exist. Now that’s a
disturbing thought….
Well done.....dude
ReplyDeleteIt is a very well developed and thought through write-up. Your command over the language has improved immensely, from downright amateurish to highly polished and I couldn't spot a word out of place. You are going great guns young man!! Proud of you!!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Sneha! Always look forward to your feedback :D
DeleteNimish very good write-up. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThank you, kaka! Appreciate it :)
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