Tweety Bird Of Paradise

Sometimes I think insanity is a viable lifestyle choice.  Think about it.  You can say and do anything you like, you can wear pajamas round the clock and no one is trying to convince you that you don't already live in an asylum.  And don't forget the free buzz anytime you throw a tantrum.

When you are considered "sane," there are so many expectations put on you.

You have to show up to appointments on time, prepared for whatever the topic is, and dressed in reasonably expensive clothes that reflect your status and profession.  That's a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a person.  Just consider all the algebra involved in being somewhere on time.  You have to calculate variables such as weather, traffic, idiocy, public services competency, riots and political demonstrations, and so many other things.  A miscalculation on any of those variables will make you late, and then everyone sits around clucking and shaking their heads and asking you where the hell the donuts are, since you are last to arrive.

As for the topic, well damn!  If you thought calculating variables was a nightmare, how about all the damn homework, last minute printing and binding, updates and revisions, and unexpected changes to the agenda?  Have you ever been called to an important meeting the night before and told that you had to have six month's worth of research not only assimilated and collated, but memorized and ready to present in a coherent manner when you've only had three hours of sleep and one cup of coffee?  And 9 times out of 10, the chairman of the meeting greets you just before going into the meeting room and completely changes all the parameters that he told you the night before during a panicked phone call.

Then there's the whole clothes thing.  If I had my druthers, I'd spend my life in plaid cotton shorts with elastic waistbands and three-day-old T-shirts with a danish in one hand and coffee in a cup that hasn't been washed since the dawn of Creation in the other.  Oh wait...I already do that.  Well, I would certainly never wear those damn monkey suits that way too hot for the climate with a noose tied around my neck.  It's inhuman!

What's worse is the damn monkey suit has to be cut and fitted to whatever shape Nature saw fit to give you, use the finest cloth, and God help you if the label inside doesn't say Armani, because all the social sniffers will look when you take your jacket off after 10 grueling hours in a meeting.

Frankly, by comparison, life in an insane asylum seems quite humane.  You have people waiting on you hand and foot, and if you don't, just run around naked for a few minutes.  You can write on the walls with Crayons.  You have no responsibilities and no one expects you to do anything productive.  And if you are like me and like to cuss a lot, they just call it Tourette's Syndrome and give you a pass.  I mean...Hallelujah!

As a lunatic, I would be able to speak any opinion and people would simply brush it off as the rantings of a madman.  Oh wait!  They already do that.  OK, so as a lunatic, I could get the finest pharmaceutical buzzes available, and all for free, as a ward of the State.

I could even sit around all day feverishly banging out ludicrous ideas that required vast amounts of money to realize to feed people's insatiable appetite for being entertained!

Oops, I already do that too.

Of course, as a lunatic, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything fun when I wanted to.  Aw, shucks, I already do that too, only I call it profound lack of funds in the bank.

Well, damn!  Here I thought this insanity plea was going to be a nice skate from reality, but it turns out that most of my life is already inside an insane asylum.  Even the whole monkey suit thing is just a matter of tailor and materials.

Perhaps the world is truly an insane asylum and we are all inmates running it.  Perhaps the people in the asylums are the ones who chose to see the reality of it all.  Such a fine world we have built for ourselves.

But you know, there's something comforting in knowing that we are all insane.