Do not support philosophic scofflaws!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Written in reaction to Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances

Why not give madness
the same degree of respect
(or lack of respect)
we give to honest-to-God sanity,
reality, or call-it-what-you-will?
The quanta of sanity/madness
buzz around us like so many moths
that are at the same time
(depending on the observer)
flying scones.

The indeterminacy of the
wave/particle behaviour of photons
is the new Wall Street, Democratic
or Republican Party or [here
fill in the name of your preferred religion,
including, if appropriate, Science
or High Order Atheism].

We - or someone very much like us
- will prevail!

[AuntShecky]

Madness I can deal with -- both the demented and the angry kind. It's stupidity that's unbearable, (mine own included, but of course I don't mean you.) The worst combination is a (usually famous)personality that is both stupid and arrogant -- especially some who are even proud of their own ignorance!

[Bar22do]

I yearn for the time in which sanity and madness will be revised and redefined... awareness about the vast realm of possible realities available to humans would be of great help in that task... for the time being, it seems (well I am not a specialist) that wave is madness, but wave meeting an obstacle crystalizes into a particle and is considered sanity... or so-called. I would rather tend to think the opposite, or would aspire for polarities to end in favour of a basic confidence we could develop in the reality of our experiences and even in our sanity... thus, perhaps, we all could prevail... your poem offers much matter for thought, thank you

[firefangled]

I have not read this novel, but you piqued my curiosity and now I will have to.

Your statement stands by itself, regardless. I love the flying scones. Much more drives the world, I think, than what we qualify as sane or mad. For all our science we are still far from knowing much about either.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Many thanks, AuntShecky, Bar22 and Firefangled. May the sun of sanity and the moon of madness be equally available to all of you.

[firefangled]

One of my favorite old movies (not old old) is A Fine Madness about the personal struggles of a poet played by Sean Connery.

[Delta40]

hmm you lost me on the second stanza but I knew I was not a butterfly - just a fluttering moth trying to find the light....

[PrinceMyshkin]

hmm you lost me on the second stanza but I knew I was not a butterfly - just a fluttering moth trying to find the light....

No problem. I just about lost myself as well. I was trying to skate as far as I could on the thinnest ice without, hopefully, falling in.

[AuntShecky]

One of my favorite old movies (not old old) is A Fine Madness about the personal struggles of a poet played by Sean Connery.

And the book is even better! It is based on a novel by an inexplicably unsung comic genius, Elliot Baker.