Interview with a Lunatic

[Guest guest]

Reporter: I understand that you admit to being mad. Is this true?

 

Lunatic: Yes.

 

R: Why then, are you trying to spread your madness?

 

L: It's a most delicious condition.

 

R: It must be a new form of insanity, then.

 

L: No it's quite old.

 

R: How come I have never heard of it?

 

L: It used to be called something else, but the term fell in disrepute.

 

R: What was it named before ?

 

L:Enlightenment.

 

R: So you're enlightened then?

 

L: No, I'm mad.

 

R: Describe your condition for me.

 

L: It's most delicious.

 

R: You said that before. Could you be more specific?

 

L:Looking and hearing is sufficient. Nothing else is needed to fill me with

delight.

 

R: Looking at what?

 

L: Myself, of course.

 

R: So you're a narcissist?

 

L: Yes, on a cosmic scale, you might say.

 

R: What do you mean?

 

L: I'm everything.

 

R: I see. This is typical. So you think you're God?

 

L: No, there's no God, only I..

 

R: I see, well, let's leave that aside for a moment. So looking at a tree,

a sidewalk, a rusty can fills you with delight because it's you?

 

L: No, not because it's me. That's just a thought I seldom think. I have no

idea what I am, so saying everything is ‘I' has really no meaning. Seeing

fills

me with delight for no reason. Like hearing a speeding car fills me with joy

for no reason.

 

R: So in this condition anything you feel gives you pleasure.

 

L: Yes, but just being conscious is now a bliss. And then being unconscious

is also blissful.

 

R: Wait a minute, how could being unconscious be blissful? You have to be

conscious to be blissful.

 

L:Yes that's true, but as soon as I regain consciousness the bliss of being

unconscious floods in.

 

R: And you are planning to spread this condition?

 

L: Yes

 

R: How? What method is there?

 

L: There is no method. It can't be taught.

 

R: And yet you are trying to spread it?

 

L: Yes

 

R But that's insane!

 

L: Exactly

 

 

R: Yesterday, you became agitated and threw me out.

 

L: Yes.

 

R: You told me not to come back again, and yet today, you called me.

Why did you change your mind?

 

L: I didn't change my mind. I still don't want to see the one you were

yesterday.

 

R: But I'm the same today.

 

L: No, you're not. You just believe you are.

 

R: How am I different?

 

L: The world is not the same as it was yesterday, and you're a tiny

expression of that world. So you could not have remained unchanged.

 

R:That reminds me, you said yesterday you were everything, and yet,

you are trying to spread your madness to others. If they are you, shouldn't

they be mad also?

 

L: I endlessly replicate myself. I endlessly forget myself to rediscover

myself. It's cosmic senility.

 

R: (smiling) So you are both mad and senile, and despite that,

you find this condition desirable.

 

L: Yes, eternal memory and consistency would be unendurable hell.

 

R: I am still unable to understand how can we be the same, and yet,

I don't share your madness.

 

L: Are water vapor, liquid water, and ice the same substance?

 

R: Yes

 

L: But they neither look, feel or behave in the same way.

What creates this apparent difference?

 

R: Heat.

 

L: Heat is molecular activity. A madman in an asylum, you ( a normal person)

and I (a functional, happy lunatic) differ only in our level of activity.

 

R: Please explain these levels of activities.

 

L: The activity in a dysfunctional madman is non-stop, chaotic; in a normal

person that activity is channeled and controlled by social constrains. This

constrains give this person the illusion of self-will; what little activity

is in me, issues from total immobility, complete rest. I am the rest from which

the universal movement appears to issue.

 

R: How did you come to find this eternal rest?

 

L: I try all sorts of methods until I became disenchanted with

activity- all activity.

 

R: What brought about this disenchantment?

 

L: I just saw the futility of it all. There was no one single cause.

 

R: So now, you sit and contemplate your navel.

 

L: There is a lot of contemplation, but life goes on as usual.

I pay the bills, go shopping, talk to neighbors. No one knows I'm a

lunatic. Not even my wife.

 

R: Do you still have sex?

 

L:Yes, why not? Sex, dancing, singing, drinking.

Nothing interferes with eternal rest.

 

R: Do you foresee a time everyone will be like that?

 

L: No.

 

R: So despite the fact that you claim to be everything,

and despite the fact that you claim all these levels of activity will

always be there, you still insist in preaching eternal rest.

 

L: Yes, a madman can't help muttering to himself.