Published in Prime Weekly under the column “Still Life,” April 27, 1989
“You call me mad,” he said, his eyes carrying an almost impressive fire. “But is my madness just the perception of your madness?”
He sighed with a weary breath, then he continued.
“My folks were mad,” he said. “I was their only child, and I was brilliant, the kind of child they had always dreamed of having. I topped my class, and they were proud of me for that. They showed me off, see our child, our brilliant child. I studied, read, memorized, learned. I grew wise, but my folks grew mad, day by day falling into lunacy. I saw reasons where they saw lunacy, order where they saw chaos, madness where they saw convention. As I grew wiser, they grew madder.
“Even as a child I was the only one who could see, the only one who could hear. I was educated by priests, and from them I learned science and mathematics, literature, the arts. I learned about faith and prayer, and I learned discipline. I guess they were good men, but I soon realized that they were mad. In their faith I saw contradictions. I entered the university when I was old enough and wise enough, and I stood in awe at the brilliance of worldly men with worldly notions, philosophers and statesmen, intellectuals, scientists. But they, too, were mad. Their principles were contradictions. I was educated by madmen, and when all that was over I worked with them, for them. I took their money and the recognition that they gave me. In madness I immersed myself.
“I rubbed elbows with men and women who sold their souls for comfort and prestige, artists of all kind who destroyed their lives for the chance to live forever. I mixed with intellectuals and scientists who enslaved themselves with the kind of work and ideas that would free humanity. Arts and sciences held my world. Philosophy held my thoughts, commerce held my life. I gave my time and my sweat, my toil. My very life was up for sale, and it was bought by madmen in a mad world. My very life was owned by them. We planned and dreamed, we toiled, we conspired. These were worldly men. I basked and delighted in their madness. Elsewhere were spiritual men. I took their faith and their philosophies and the rituals that would set them free, yet enslaved them.
“I then realized I had had enough. I was the only sane person among them.”
The madman stopped to catch his breath. No one was speaking now, no one was laughing. During the silence I kept my attention on this man, this paradox of brilliance and madness, insight and inanity.
“I just came from a gathering of wise men,” he continued. “Such wise men, I thought, such proud men who spoke before a crowd of simple folks. They didn’t just talk, no, they discoursed. I stood there with the simple folk and listened to these philosophers and intellectuals, the great thinkers of our time who sought their own place in eternity, their own contribution to the wealth of humanity’s ideas. They spoke of life and immortality, the nature of the universe, the destiny of humanity. They discussed the very meaning of life, these wise men. They debated politics, democracy and tyranny, the individual and the state, the endless isms that held us spellbound. Such wise men.
“They waxed with eloquence and brilliance, these proud men. Who could stand before them? Who among the simple folk could match them? They spoke of the hereafter, of the law and morality, of rebellion and the social contract, the social conscience, metaphysics, ideology, theology. One against the other, the arguments and insights of educated, brilliant men. They discussed the reasons for existence. They asked the timeless questions of humanity, and their audience listened in awe. The hungry, the sick, the homeless and the unemployed, how they all listened. Madmen making madmen of us all. I didn’t stay to see the end of it, I couldn’t.
“So I came here, seeking sanity. Tell me now, have I found it? Right here, right now, is there sanity?”
He turned silent and just observed the people who passed by and those who had gathered by him. He seemed tired, as if his talk had drained him of strength. Wearily, it seemed, he looked at each one of us as though he had the power to look into our souls. In our lives, perhaps, in our souls, he saw madness. He signed and looked down.
“I saw a child,” he said. “A beautiful child. How I felt for him, pitied him. The hope and the future of humanity, taught by madmen in a mad world.”
He said nothing more. The tears just started flowing from his weary eyes, and silently, we watched a madman weep.
