Krishnamurti once said that it was no great achievement to appear sane and well-adjusted in an insane world. In these interesting times, that’s an idea that resonates with me on several levels.
First of all, it calls into question what we individually, and as a society, consider socially acceptable and non-destructive behavior. Let’s abandon the idea of national standards at this point – because face it, there are not only differing ideas on this subject among the salad bowl of cultures, ethnicities, races, religions, and political persuasions that are tossed together in the Great American Salad, but there are numberless regional varieties across and within each sovereign state. Add to that the idea that how each generation defines what does and doesn’t quality as weird, strange, or aberrant behavior, and you’ll see there’s no real way to come up with a consistent and mutually acceptable definition of terms. And that’s just a very small section of the Americas.
Bureaucratically speaking, normal and sane are the standards by which solid hierarchies are built. Individuals who can sit still, be silent, and be generally agreeable are valued building blocks of successful societies. We praise the artistic, creative, inventive, eccentric, and otherwise abnormal among us, but we don’t really want them among us, living next door, teaching our children, pastoring our flocks, or challenging our status quo. It’s one thing to insist that your child take a few years of piano lessons. That can be useful at cocktail parties. It’s quite another to encourage them to use that skill as a basis for eking out a meager living accompanying television soap operas. Western civilizations, in particular, with the exception of maybe the Celtic, have always looked at the arts as an occupation for the lower classes. Even the Celts, to be honest, seemed to value warriors who could march into battle with visible erections a little higher than they celebrated the average lute player.
It’s been said, however, that Western civilization has been very good at passing from generation to generation the means and technology by which things are done but has not done so well at communicating from parent to child the reasons why it is important to do them in the first place. Society reconstruction projects, like modern Druidry and Witchcraft, as well as a lot of intentional communities of other kinds, seem to if not recognize, at least suffer from, these problems. It’s great to learn and emulate modern anthropologists’ interpretations of rituals with no surviving actual original participants, complete with ancient languages no living person still speaks, and imagine that makes you a Druid. It’s an illusion, of course. Unless you really understand the purpose for an original ritual, and the reasons still exist in that same form in modern day, AND the symbols and language have some current meaning and application, taking a sickle of gold to trim the mistletoe from an oak tree in City Park isn’t really much use. Of course, human beings will always need rituals. But we need our own celebrations, justifications, and recognitions, not someone else’s. If we don’t find our own ways, and find them meaningful in our own time, we’re no different from an SCA group that imagines themselves all reincarnated from royalty, or a vodoun group speaking in French Creole even though they’re all third generation Russian Jews.
But who’s to say what is “sane” and what isn’t? Whatever floats your boat, right? If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. In an ideal world, maybe some of that works. But in a reality where your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, the restrictive nature of cooperative behavior can stifle even the most unbalanced responses.
Besides, given the nature of generational shifts, the constant pendulum swing between Apollonian and Dionysian ideals, chances are, as Batman learned, if you survive as a hero long enough you will be painted a villain. The world is impermanent, as is everything in it. You, me, ethical standards, philosophies, even gods and demons have expiration dates. Most ideas are a mere generation from extinction. If we don’t find a way to communicate with our children, then our way of looking at the world is gone when our brief candle flames are extinguished. And we spend so much time, like our parents and their parents before them, worrying that our children have no sense, no morality, and no direction. But we never look in the mirror to figure out why that is. It’s much easier to blame the devil than take responsibility for our own lack of evolution.
If Johnny can’t read, it’s because we didn’t show him how wonderful it can be to lose yourself in a book. If our child is distant, angry, resentful, and bitter, remember it doesn’t matter what you say to an apple, it cannot fall too far from the tree.
And who are we to judge the sanity of anyone else? Do we really have our act together? Would a jury of our peers – if we could actually find one – agree with that verdict?
Besides, as Seal put it, “We’re never gonna survive unless we go a little crazy. “
Buckle up, buttercup. At least you’re not along on this ride.
15 APR 2025
© 2025, John Litzenberg. All rights reserved.