What is sanity, anyway?…

“What happens in thirty or forty years? Are you going to be a crazy, old man?”

Vicky’s concerned for my sanity the way a mother is concerned her child will break his neck when first riding a bicycle.

So, let me give this to you straight. Yes, after my divorce things were bad. I had a hard time of it. But now, it’s really not so troubling. I find it humorous when I had the odd hallucination. As I said to Vicky, “I just have a different relationship with reality.”

Vicky asked, “What about what people think about you?”

I told her that those who know me know I’m fine. If they don’t, more’s the pity for them.

But I want to talk for a minute about sanity because I can’t help but see a huge cue card that reads “IRONY”. There are people right now who are trying to bring the world to a horrible war… excuse me, another horrible war. They did it with Afghanistan. They did it with Iraq. Now, they’re doing it with Iran. These people are considered sane.

There are people who believe that torture is a good thing. That our nation has every right to act inhumanely towards others just because we can. These, too, are considered sane.

There are people right now who strongly believe that industry should not be regulated and who are just as strongly appalled with their dog is poisoned through tainted food. Again, sane people.

Some people think there is a place where we go after we die, that angels with wings live there, that a big bossman lives there with a rule book filled against which he judges us so that if we do not behave correctly we are sent to a place full of fire and pain and torture and sorrow and filth and anquish – and that he loves you. Sane.

So, please, don’t talk to me about sanity. Comparatively, anything I experience is completely benign.