YAMBAR ON THE MADNESS THAT MATTERS.

One of the sadder facts of life is that, without fail, there is usually always something to be mad about. People are ruder, dumber and more self-entitled than ever. I remember getting a phone call from my dad several years ago and hearing him go on with a list of hateful actions targeting him as he made his customary journey to his local McDonald's and back for his #1 Breakfast Value Meal. He got cut off by another driver on a cell phone, was flipped off at a stop light by some creeps at a bus stop, was bumped out of line by some career welfare mother and her booger-eating brats while waiting to order, was treated like a retard for mentioning that the counter help gave him the wrong order, and then had someone walk off with his paper while he 'was about to read the comics section.' To top it off, he had to return home to his swamp witch of a second wife (not my real mom), who was off to massage the Amish and didn't have time to get his prescriptions which he needed for the day before going to work. He also found out that he needed to pay for her personal business taxes and that the cat box was full and needed scooped.
When he finished, he took a well-deserved breath and asked me if I missed the same memo that he did. The one broadcast globally while we slept. The one where everyone else was more important than he was.
We then discussed how unhappy these people were and what their lives may be like. Living hells where the petty becomes the dramatic at the drop of a hat. Lives filled with echo less voids, unfulfilled dreams and one-upmanship without reward. Mornings filled with self-loathing and social retardation. Too much TV and lots of silent masturbation to scenarios that never happened to anyone in real life. Lottery tickets with losing numbers paid for by the baby's milk money. MADNESS.
I could hear him shaking his head as he hung up the phone. It was then that I looked up the word 'mad' in the dictionary. It has a lot of meanings, including "having a mental disorder, intense anger, the lack of proper judgment, being affected by rabies, and insanity." It also had a few meanings that made me feel as if I was 'mad,' too:
"Carried away by enthusiasm or desire, marked by wild gaiety and merriment, hilarious, and wild."
It's interesting how one word can have such completely opposing meanings. It's also interesting how we can all wake up on the same planet and still be so alienating and other-worldly to each other.
I suppose this is based on where we focus our passion. Some have a passion only for self. Others have passion for life. I am a creature of passion. We all are. And like they said during the Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland - "We are all mad here."
I just choose to be a madness of a different color. Nobody hit that on the head better than the late beat writer Jack Kerouac who described those ensconced and enraptured in the beat experience:
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'”
Yeah!