Imagine a place where people pretend to be crazy in order to do exactly what they want. --Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

Imagine, if you will, a place where there is no need to pretend to be crazy in order to do exactly what you want. We’ll dive into what that might look like. But first,

DEFINITIONS

Recall, again, from 02 SEE THROUGH that “Sanity is the state of being in alignment with the status quo. Any deviation, no matter how far, is madness. How far you stray defines how mad you are,” and from 03 DOWNBAD that it’s “fucking ridiculous that the status quo should hold the answer to how one should Live.”

Also, Merriam-Webster defines asylum as “the protection or security afforded by an asylum : REFUGE.”

Now then, off we go to

WONDERLAND

Alice found sanity dreadfully boring. “Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’” Moments later she was off chasing the White Rabbit into and down the rabbit hole, all the way into Wonderland.

Alice stepped into Wonderland and found herself in a world gone mad. Or so she thought. In reality, she was viewing Wonderland through glasses colored by her own experience; what she understood was sane, and everyone else was mad. But Wonderland wouldn’t be undone by Alice. Wonderland acted and reacted as Alice acted and reacted. And though she did her best to make sense of Wonderland and imbue a sense of reason with its characters, Alice eventually gave up and moved through the world in as pragmatic a way as she was able, thinking all the while she had gone mad herself.

In truth, Alice was mad before she entered Wonderland. No dreadfully boring and sane person could have dreamed up so vivid and carefree a world.

Wonderland was not made any more sane by Alice, nor was Alice made any more mad by Wonderland. Alice was the same Alice that Alice was when Alice entered Wonderland, though far more accepting of the madness that surrounded her. Even the Red Queen herself was powerless to bend the characters of Wonderland to her will. Though she quite liberally handed out beheadings, the King quite liberally handed out pardons in kind. All were absolved; all continued in their madness. And Wonderland continued as Wonderland did, an asylum for the mad to be exactly who and do exactly what they wanted.

Madness is liberating.

Here was a world where none had to pretend to be crazy in order to do exactly what they wanted. They simply did exactly what they wanted.

If you haven’t yet found your rabbit hole, you will. Just take care that you don’t fall too far down the rabbit hole. But who am I kidding? It takes but a step, and then you slide down, down, and down. And then you fall. And while you may slow your descent, your descent doesn’t end until you arrive at the bottom.

Until you arrive in your own Wonderland.

ABOUT THE COLLAGE

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