Iron Fist

The thing about crazy people is that they seem to have no idea how goddamn crazy they are. I suppose that’s part of what makes them crazy, right? The more-or-less sane people in this world have that built-in mechanism so that when we start to do something crazy, this little safety gets tripped and a little voice says, “Hey, don’t you think this is a little, you know. CRAZY?” or maybe you get a feeling in your gut that what you’re saying and doing is really just ridiculous. I would argue that it’s this early-warning system going off that lets you know that you’re not crazy. The nutty-and-delusional, however, are lacking this internal check and so go right along with their crazy behavior.

I would further argue that for the non-crazy, if they should somehow start down a course of action towards something crazy and somehow missed their safety check, they will at least be open to someone else pointing out the craziness of what they’re about to do.

But if you’re really crazy? Good luck reasoning with someone like that. For example, I remember during the last presidential election, when the Lyndon LaRouche campaign people were swarming all over campus trying to hand out campaign literature and garner support for their candidate who, if memory serves, wasn’t even on the Oregon ballot. It was less than a week before the election when one of them jumped out in front of me while I was on my way to class. “Hey man, got a minute?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Listen up man, you’ve got to get on board with LaRouche, now, because we’ve only got four days left to get rid of all the Nazis.”

“The Nazis? As in, like, the real Nazis?”

“The Nazis, man. All of them.”

I looked into his eyes and saw his utter conviction that we were, in fact, infested with Nazis in this country, actual Nazis, no doubt slinking around the suburbs right now in their shiny boots and crisp uniforms, probably going through my ‘fridge and eating the last of my ice cream or stealing socks out of my laundry, and only by getting on board with the LaRouche campaign could we defeat them. There would be no reasoning with this guy, and there was certainly no “little inside voice” telling him, “Hey, you don’t happen to think all this talk about the Nazis is a little crazy, do you?”

So rather than argue with him, I just agreed with him. “All right, man. The Nazis. We gotta get rid of them. But right now I need to get to class. You still going to be here in an hour?”

“Yeah. You’ll be back?”

“Hell yeah!” I said, pumping my fist in the air to convince him of the full extent of my red-blooded American patriotism. “You hold down the fort till I get back!” Then I walked away to class, already working out the alternate routes between my classes and my apartment that I’d have to take for the next week.

Is there a larger point to all this? Absolutely. I just can’t get into it right now, as it’s all just a little too, oh, disturbing and ridiculous and completely fucking crazy, if you will.  Maybe I’ll get into it all later.