Thursday, November 18, 2004

Seeking (an) Asylum!

It is fun to behave in a crazy way sometimes! We love it and seem to have a special place in our hearts for amusing manic behavior and its associated high energy and humor. Anyone who would tell you about having been incarcerated in an institution for the insane, however, would not speak so glibly. Still we have characters who check in them, such as Alan Arkin's character in King of Hearts, or craftily avoid the worst, such as Anthony Hopkins' character in Silence of the Lambs, by checking in one. We frequently use the concept metaphorically to convey our impressions of things as large as goverment bodies or as small as our homes or those of our neighbors. Our great fondness and use, if you will, of insanity seems to not be dependant on reality and seems to be quite pervasive.

I wonder what it is about the escape into insanity that we find it, in a metaphorical or stylized way, so appealing?

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