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An old idea, but a good one: being crazy (or psychotic) is based on looking at a point of normalcy outside yourself, reflecting upon an internal point, and discerning how well you align.
The difficulty is, when you are a sane person in a sick world, you must perform sickness to appear sane.
And to go further: "You aren’t thinking or really existing unless you’re willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.” Frank Herbert, Children of Dune
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Thinking you are right is the fastest way to enter a power struggle.
Once in a power struggle, there’s always a winner or loser. Or one party decides passive-aggressively to be magnanimous while holding on to a grudge.
Your assuredness cannot help but become an interpersonal conflict, which means it was never about converting or enlightening people but about alienating them.
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There is another probable version of you that you could choose. This is the other you, the potential you.
You could continue choosing the most unlikely version of yourself until you move into the improbable: you choose your way out of reality. Yet, we tend to have elasticities that snap us back into a recognizable self.
It is only the courageous, or the crazy, who can continue beyond the probable to become something entirely other.
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When one party feels guilty, it is healthy to assume that not both are to blame.
However, there is a relationship between the guilty party attempting to atone, apologize, or acceed to the other they feel they have wronged.
In this sense, feeling guilty bonds you to another, often in a subservient manner. And as we know, from Hegel’s Master/Slave dynamic the subservient party controls the dominant one.
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Real power wanes when people shift into the symbolic.
For instance, as England ceased to be a global power, the monarchy became even more important, yet the country and monarchy had less power as reverence increased.
Similarly Japan, after losing World War II, doubles down on the (symbolic) moral imperatives as unique signifiers when real power lead to disaster.
The danger is when symbolic power becomes reified into privileged national nostalgia it locks down the citizenry so that no real change is possible: to progress is to betray.
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People don’t want power: they want to be heard.
Consequently, because people want influence, they often mistakenly take on responsibility as the means to achieve it.
The resultant power is the misguided attempts to gain influence.
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A position of power is the only way to manifest change. And the most power is at the top of a society.
In part, the top positions accrue authority through entrenched hierarchy as systemic programming. with access to people, media, and money through stable systems, a small number of people can create lasting change.
However, defending the position consumes more resources over time until a change of leadership must occur.
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Change is commonly driven from below.
The top requires stability for profit and maintenance, which is a form of power.
To enact change is to replace those in power, creating a cyclic win-loss cycle, where there is always a bottom and top: the bottom craving change, while the top stagnates, fending off change.
(Tomorrow I will argue the opposite)
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When you are anxious you aren’t profound. You feel the need to act: to speak, to do.
This acidic aggravation generates a compulsive need for action, for exhaustion. It is a bodily response springing from a psychological state.
Our goal is to soothe the mind to soothe the soul, trusting the body will follow.
