I recently went to a performance of The Double by Dostoevsky at a theatre in Toronto. I'm not a huge theatre fan, it isn't normally something I would spend my time/money on, but since I am a big Dostoevsky fan and my wife and I happened to see an ad while exiting a local bar, I thought, what the hell. We got to the theatre separately, I was a few minutes earlier because I had to pick up the tickets and me wife needed to walk my parents back to their car. My parents aren't invalids or anything but it seems nice to make sure they make it back to their car when they come down to the city to spend time with us. Once I had picked up our tickets and used the restroom my wife walked in and we got settled in our seats to what was a very unique and entertaining take on The Double.
For those of you not familiar with the story you can check here or you can take my word for it that the story is about a man, Golyadkin, who while going crazy, sees a double of himself outperforming him in society and generally making his own life miserable. The hero spirals into madness and eventually is carted away by his doctor. The original is quite dark with glimpses of humour, but the performance was quite humorous with glimpses of darkness. We both enjoyed the performance thoroughly and spent much of the next day recounting it's finer points and chuckling about poor Golyadkin's reaction to his situation.
Cut to this evening and I was at a party for one of my good friend's birthdays. He is 33 today and seems to be having a great time of it. I reconnected with another friend of mine that I haven't see in a few months and we started catching up. She informed me about her Grandmother who is in the process of losing her mind. Now, I likely could have been more sympathetic; in fact I think I may have downplayed it too much, and subsequently acted a bit like an ass - I do that sometimes. This aside, it got me thinking about a topic that I often find myself pondering: what is it like to go crazy? And is it even possible to have an anser to that question?
I've thought on more than one occasion, often prompted by literature and movies about the prospect of losing my faculties. What would it be like? If it like being really drunk? Does one have moments of clarity in one's madness? Is it frightening? Is one able to distinguish when they are "snapping out of it" as one can when truly waking up from a bad dream? These are all questions that I really don't know the answer to, but am endlessly fascinated by.
I'm going to put forward a thought that I think will be unpopular, maybe even more so than my usual thoughts that land me in hot water with friends and family, and that thought is this: if I was given the opportunity, I would like to go stark raving mad for a few years. Now, I am 100% sure that one can't choose to go crazy, in fact the very thought may be a contradiction in terms, but if it weren't a logical impossibility I think it would very interesting to - temporarily - go crazy.
The experience of it happening may be completely lost on the sufferer while experiencing it, but it seems to me those moments of clarity would be so rich, and shocking, when they came that there wouldn't be another experience to parallel it. Also, the matter of "being taken care of" for a few years at an asylum, with only books and one's thoughts to keep you company could be a very interesting proposition as well. With any luck one wouldn't land at a Cuckoo's Nest like facility but would spend time in a safe environment where the staff cared for them. Given this condition I think it would be a very interesting experience. And given the famous people who have ended up this way, it seems that I would be in good company.
For those of you not familiar with the story you can check here or you can take my word for it that the story is about a man, Golyadkin, who while going crazy, sees a double of himself outperforming him in society and generally making his own life miserable. The hero spirals into madness and eventually is carted away by his doctor. The original is quite dark with glimpses of humour, but the performance was quite humorous with glimpses of darkness. We both enjoyed the performance thoroughly and spent much of the next day recounting it's finer points and chuckling about poor Golyadkin's reaction to his situation.
Cut to this evening and I was at a party for one of my good friend's birthdays. He is 33 today and seems to be having a great time of it. I reconnected with another friend of mine that I haven't see in a few months and we started catching up. She informed me about her Grandmother who is in the process of losing her mind. Now, I likely could have been more sympathetic; in fact I think I may have downplayed it too much, and subsequently acted a bit like an ass - I do that sometimes. This aside, it got me thinking about a topic that I often find myself pondering: what is it like to go crazy? And is it even possible to have an anser to that question?
I've thought on more than one occasion, often prompted by literature and movies about the prospect of losing my faculties. What would it be like? If it like being really drunk? Does one have moments of clarity in one's madness? Is it frightening? Is one able to distinguish when they are "snapping out of it" as one can when truly waking up from a bad dream? These are all questions that I really don't know the answer to, but am endlessly fascinated by.
I'm going to put forward a thought that I think will be unpopular, maybe even more so than my usual thoughts that land me in hot water with friends and family, and that thought is this: if I was given the opportunity, I would like to go stark raving mad for a few years. Now, I am 100% sure that one can't choose to go crazy, in fact the very thought may be a contradiction in terms, but if it weren't a logical impossibility I think it would very interesting to - temporarily - go crazy.
The experience of it happening may be completely lost on the sufferer while experiencing it, but it seems to me those moments of clarity would be so rich, and shocking, when they came that there wouldn't be another experience to parallel it. Also, the matter of "being taken care of" for a few years at an asylum, with only books and one's thoughts to keep you company could be a very interesting proposition as well. With any luck one wouldn't land at a Cuckoo's Nest like facility but would spend time in a safe environment where the staff cared for them. Given this condition I think it would be a very interesting experience. And given the famous people who have ended up this way, it seems that I would be in good company.
1 comment:
I've seen a number of friends struggle with some terrible demons.
What's it like? There are many different kinds of mental illness, but there's one descriptive word that seems common to all that I've had described to me: Terrifying. I've heard from someone so depressed they didn't know what they would do to themselves, and from someone who didn't know what the creatures surrounding his bed would do to him. It's not a fear of the unknown; sometimes they do know. That goes way beyond terrifying.
As for moments of clarity, I think they're more than just mere moments. Knowing that something is irrational doesn't necessarily stop it from happening. It seems to me that's a big part of what makes their ordeals so terrible.
On the other side though, I've seen what can happen when they survive and get good treatment. Years of inward focus and self exploration is good for anyone, whether they are ill or not. It sucks that we can't all take the time to just do some of that. The survivors I know are more grounded, and know themselves and their limitations, if they have any. Often they find they do not.
I've been envious of that at times. I've often wondered if it's worth it. The answer is clearly no, so it's a good thing we don't get a choice.
Want to know what really sucks? The stigma of any kind of mental illness makes it so they have to carry they're experiences around like some kind of baggage. It's a survival story where they get to be the hero, but they can't talk about it.
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