The Saint
Sponsoring Schizophrenia
J. H. Ramsay on the increasing need for Schizophrenia in modern society
As far as I can observe, Viewpoint is the section of The Saint thats meant to spark some controversy with an intention for wildfire arguments. And Im totally down with that.
So start smoking, copulate without protection, light some fires, and most importantly, recognize your need for imagining things are different than they actually are. In a world of projected impossible ideals, even the most pessimistic of us have to have a warped view of things. Thats why, for this article, and for the sake of argument, Im sponsoring Schizophrenia.
Everyone imagines people. We read books, we watch movies, we convince ourselves over and over that George Clooney is a fox, that hes a conman, that hes an American secret agent. We stare so hard at the two dimensional that it pops off the screen, out of the page, into our lives. The reason for this obsession with the irrational is simple: the human species needs more than it has. We have to reach higher than we can grasp to avoid stagnation, we have to fool ourselves into living to stop dying.
I propose that a human life is nothing more than a compilation of groundless hopes, of illogical and unrealistic obsessions with fantasy and fiction. Were all schizophrenics. Were all hallucinating. And theres nothing wrong with it. Embrace your fictions. Follow your dreams off the ledge of that skyscraper. Hope as hard as you can that youll fly. Its the only way our species can keep from freezing up and dying off. We have to keep hoping.
T. S. Eliot once wrote that humankind cannot bear very much reality. Hes right, we cant. Reality suffocates us. Your armchair by that fire, with the flickering lights, and the sleeping dog, and the howling wind . . . What is it without a copy of Jorge Louis Borges Ficciones or Jean Paul Sartres Nausea? Just a chair, just a dog, just some light and wind. Whats a night with friends without some discussion of the effects of Hollywood, that monolithic neon personification of creativity? Just a night without modern culture.
Whether youre reading this in Starbucks, walking down Market Street, or wiping your nose with this article and catching words between blotches of mucous, ask yourself some questions.
Why do we learn more about what is, than about what should be? Is it more important to know where were going, than to know where we are? Which is more fun, the contents of my mind or this external world; the things I can imagine, or the things I can observe? Who has more impact on this world, the screenwriters and poets, singer songwriters and actors, or the politicians and government officials? Are they on the same side? Are they all just lying to us? To themselves? And if so, should they stop?
Schizophrenics are running this world, and it shouldnt be any other way. Everyones eyes are sucking in the flat, material-less projections of advertisements and opinions, of promises and guarantees, statistics and evidence. We speak through fiction, we listen through it, we find human connection, we transcend and, eventually, escape the physical limits anchored to our shoes like concrete.
Its important to be unrealistic. Its important to hope, to have some faith, to believe in and expect the illogical. I guess what Im trying to say, in the end, through these black lines of letters, marching ants of prose, is that its imperative for people to look at life and be mistaken, to misinterpret, to outright lie and mislead. Thats what makes us human. Thats what defines us.
If theres anything I want to leave you with, its this request: consider what wed be without our imaginations. Schizophrenia isnt a disease or malady, its a condition and requirement for the human species.
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