Rational Insanity

The world is insane. We observe that in our sober moments until we ourselves are gripped by the disease and flung back into madness. A rational animal doesn’t behave like we do, attacking for no reason and hurting ourselves. The four-legged brutes do it all for a purpose following an infallible instinct, the law of nature which governs with perfection. If they are not rational, they still act rationally.

We, wretched human beings, have it all figured out, but to no avail. Simple science tells us how it works, our basic reason reveals the law of cause and effect, we know what will follow from our acts. We know that destruction will come, but we still destroy. That is insanity for you.

We know history; it’s an endless repetition of human mistakes. We could have learned from history, but we refuse, insisting on revisiting the well-known disasters. Better to stick to the madness we know.

To err is human; what a refreshing reminder that would have been if only we could learn. But the errors soon become a habit, done over and over until they are a part of our personality. Then we may despair, cursing our misfortune as if it were a natural disaster. But sometimes we may even embrace our habitual mistakes calling them our identity and let them fill us with pride. Both are madness.

Such is the life of a nation – an irrational mixture of catastrophe and pride, and such are our private lives – despair and vanity.

What would be the cure of this human illness? Rationality, yes, but that is also what started it all. Because man is a rational animal he thinks for himself and messes it up. Because he knows the laws of nature he rebels and makes his own laws to contradict them. Because we are rational we are irrational, and that makes the world insane. There is no cure for that.