Thru the eyes of a lunatic

As I solve math problems with my friends in the tuitions, and sometimes mumble to myself, or hum some Metallica or Iron Maiden number, with hard to recreate style of singing and great guitar leads, I also hear my friends calling me mad, or rather crazy. I sit at home, now, listening to some Heavy metal, or Hard rock, nicely sprinkled with awesome Guitar leads and rifts, and swing my head to the music, my parents call me mad. To be precise, they, my friends and my parents, call me ‘Pagal’, Bengali for mad. Each time I ask myself-Am I really going crazy, am I already mad? I find now, 16^th October’2006, 2:30 AM, appropriate for giving some thought to the issue in question, as I am listening to some Dramatic Rock and heavy metal, and don’t feel like doing anything else.

The dictionary in defining mad, maddens and confuses, as it lists words, like disordered mind, insane, frenzied, wildly foolish, furious, passionate and many more, all, describing integral qualities of madness. I have seen people, driven crazy and furious at the usage of the word mad in describing them. But thinking of the reasons people call me mad for, and the things it could imply, I find mad not an unsuitable word to describe my state of mind, in general.

I don’t think I have a properly “ordered” mind, and neither do most other people, if order means everything being in the perfectly right places, like a defragmented hard drive, in a computer, where no single piece of information is cluttered or to be technically correct, fragmented. If that would be the case, no one would require keeping books full of facts, databases of anything and everything. The human beings would then have perfectly ordered minds, with ability to store and retrieve data, of any form, at will. Unfortunately, it is not the case and hence, not having a properly ordered mind, doesn’t seem to be an abnormal thing. I will deal with the second and third listings in the dictionary, insanity and frenzy, a bit later after putting some things into perspective. The fourth description is of being wildly foolish, which I am sure I or for that matter all the people in the world aren’t, because survival is one thing that doesn’t allow for foolishness. In the present world, which despises losers and foolishness, wild foolishness finds its existence only in essence. The fifth word, furious, to describe madness and me, doesn’t actually throw me out of the domain of humanity. Nowadays, everyone is angry, and if not always, then sometimes, but angry all the same. That leaves only the last of my selections, passionate, before I return to insanity and frenzy. I find no harm in being called a person of passion, because without passion no work reaches its destination, nothing gets completed. But, yes, I have had a serious case of nervousness, for which I have had to undergo diagnosis and consequent therapy, although during which I was never said to be affected by a serious case of mental disorder. And I care not to look too much into it. Maybe therein lies the flaw. Anyway, I would rather like to examine my actions that lead to the notions, I talked about. I listen to heavy music, which seemingly conveys great angst and hints of rebellion, mixed with violence. But, this throws open a greater question for all of us. If we can seemingly get angry and form pre conceived notions, in reaction to such small things as music laced with hint of angst, we need to open our windows and not only peek out, but take some time to look at the world and even stare at ourselves in the neighbour’s mirror, through the window. Have we become so inert so as to cry only when the fire licks us and not even look when the fire lashes someone else? How can we allow someone to blow the fire in someone else’s direction just for their convenience and take the dead’s things when we can all douse the fire with water of togetherness, that allows everything, everyone to be together, as same, with no up or down and that which can flow and occupy space, as one. Is it our going away from nature causing all this? Does nature all want us back to it and if it cannot take the green path will it take the red path to primitivity? The question cannot yet be answered, not in fullness, at least. However, we can all think about it, discuss it and maybe even get to peek at it, as it starts looming over us. In the meantime, I’m still me and I continue to exist. So, does it have any serious implications on me? I don’t know. Maybe I should listen to music at a lower volume. Maybe I should keep my tunes to myself. Or, maybe something else should change. Or, maybe not..

I don’t want to burden my mind anymore with any such questions. Neither does anyone have to. After all, where’s the time. Life’s moving at a real fast pace. We have to run or maybe even overrun it. But, we just gotta be careful that in this race we don’t trample on each other and end up not finishing the race at all. Maybe everyone requires a bit of compromising. But, will it ultimately wield results. Because as long as there isn’t any action, how can we know about the results. Calculations and theoies can go wrong. But, who cares. Till then, just enjoy the music.