Madness

I'm in my 4th reading of the essay Dr. Sexson gave me to read titled "Apocalypse." Many parts of this essay trouble me because they cause me to think "WTF" or "What could this even mean?" which, I think, is exactly what the essay intends to do.

Paragraph two states, "Our real choice is between holy and unholy madness: open your eyes and look around you - madness is in the saddle anyway" which the author then explains by saying, "It is possible to be mad and to be unblest; but it is not possible to get the blessing without the madness; it is not possible to get the illuminations without the derangement."

As I read this passage I am brought back to our last class wherein Matt shared his feverish dream and Sexson said fevers and epileptic trances are instances in which we are able to transcend the human state; Matt's dream was nothing less than a vision. An instance of unholy madness.

Simultaneously I think of my Bible as Literature class wherein I just read about the prophet Ezekiel and how his book is filled with images of schizophrenia and epileptic trances; he is regarded as a psychotic prophet. Therefore the prophecies of Ezekiel are instances of holy madness.

Growing up in a strict, traditional Catholic household certainly had an impact on me. When I first read this passage I thought, "Holy madness??" and instantly felt inner turmoil. After all, I have always been encouraged to think of religion as a factual, right, truth. Something that is not to be messed with. But as I have grown past the point of accepting what my elders tell me to the point of questioning things and forming my own beliefs, I have come to believe that all religions are the same. And atheists' belief systems (though not directed towards a god) are on the same level, just facing a different direction. To sum all that up: we are all mad. We just express it in different ways.

The other day I had a talk with Joe about the questions quote ("Ever answer is a form of death") and the conclusion we came to was that we must be prepared to doubt the very foundation on which we have built ourselves and our lives; we must be prepared to "kill God" (direct quote from Joe), and "god" in this sense is whatever that foundation of our lives is. T.S. Eliot expresses a similar notion in "Dry Salvages" when he writes,

"There is no end, but addition: the trailing consequence of further days and hours, While emotion takes to itself and the emotionless Years of living among the breakage Of what was believed in as the most reliable - And therefore the fittest for renunciation"

All of life is possessed by madness. Whether it be holy, unholy, or the madness gained in resisting either (for as I read in the previously mentioned essay, "Resisting madness can be the maddest way of being mad"), it is how we live. And the driving force of the madness in our lives is also the foundation upon which we have built ourselves. So if we are meant to question that force, we are then meant to question our sanity, which has to be the most confusing, intense, and likely painful experience we will ever go through. I hope I have the courage to do it when I arrive at that point in my life, because I am certain that point is out there and that I will reach it eventually.