|
EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
|
what is a madman?
#7503479 - 10/09/07 10:38 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I'm about to start reading a book called "notes from the underground" by Dostoevsky and thought I would reflect on what a madman is before I got started, so here it is:
A madman is someone who is willfully ignorant. He is the kind of man who is the best proof against free will. His whole life is like a carefully calculated art. The madman knows that nobody can be fully responsible for their actions because of incomplete data, and takes this to the extreme.
The madman thinks himself superior, on a whole other plane, for never settling on one possibility over another. Frantic is his negation of everything which came before him.
He frantically will discount all value systems, for there are none which strike the best possibility. What is the best possibility? The madman would not tell you, he would only say that it exists as a possibility. For if he gave you a positive statement about what the best possibility was, he would be creating a narrow minded view which limits the consciousness.
In a way, he is more conscious than the narrow minded masses. The madman might be a sado-machosist who gets pleasure out of seeing people mock or laugh at him - it validates his assumption that people are narrow minded. And in a sense, he is right.
There is no final conclusion, the madman knows; there is no answer. But in knowing this, he might make the leap to say there is no beginning either. There can be no beginning, no opening, it's all decided already.
Everything has been set up before and there's no changing it. Where does the madman's place lie then? He denies rational egoism at all fronts - he must have his freedom from what he perceives as a false free will. He completely denies the ego and searches for something higher, using his intellect to go either way and still be aware of the contradictions.
What does he live for? Does playing these intellectual games make him happy? He wishes he could be like an ant and not be conscious, but he is more like a mouse who is scrambling every which way to some kind of liberation. He is trying to condition himself into unconsciousness while still being aware and even envious of the other possibilities.
He lives as a kind of a twisted representation of his own truth. There really is no foundation of truth for the madman, just a tower of babel created by the madman's own determined inertia. He has piled the dualities so high up, surely he must be the smartest man that ever lived.
He keeps building higher and higher, and the game gets more dangerous as he realizes how hard the fall would be if he were to accept the ground. He is untrustworthy and sick.
But society needs the madman and his ilk, the underground. The negation of all that is good and worthy deemed by society... for if the madman didn't exist to be critical and completely contradictory, if society did not have it's rebelling villains.. how should we know what order would look like?
--------------------
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
You're talking about half the people on this forum
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
MushmanTheManic
Stranger

Registered: 04/21/05
Posts: 4,587
|
|
Good book.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder


Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Well, in the 60s, Napoleon XIV, sang this spooky song to his dog who'd run away and caused him to lose his mind. (Never mind the animation, howsoever spooky, I just wanted to copy the song). I still have a 45 rpm record with this. The reverse side was printed in reverse and the song ran in reverse! It was eventually banned from radio, notably W-ABC AM in NY (Cousin Brucie and the other DJs of that era) for being insensitive to the truly mentally ill. This was even before FM radio became the thing (like W-NEW FM in NY) not to mention Dr. Demento.
Woo-Hoo, Woo-Hoo-Hoo...Woo-Hoo-Woo-Hoo-Hoo.
|
EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Icelander]
#7505873 - 10/10/07 03:25 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Icelander said: You're talking about half the people on this forum
That is correct.
--------------------
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
I know which half I'm on. Can you see me waving at you?:D
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
Edited by Icelander (10/10/07 03:27 PM)
|
EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Icelander]
#7505892 - 10/10/07 03:29 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I'm not on any side... i'm still on the fence about this whole thing, gotta keep the possibilities open
--------------------
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
That fence is electric.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
Posts: 7,152
Loc: Time and Space
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Icelander]
#7505917 - 10/10/07 03:36 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
I've become more of a realist as of late actually.. i think i'm starting to accept that i'm not going to reach some kind of ***XTREEEME ENLIGHTENMENT***
edit: which isnt to say ill ever stop meditating or expanding my awareness
--------------------
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
That's a conclusion I also came to. Then I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't ever be sure of anything. Then I came to the conclusion that I was really going to die and it didn't matter to anyone but me. Now I'm coming to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter to me either. This brings me to the conclusion that I am pretty silly. This brings me to the conclusion to try and have fun no matter what I think, believe or say. This brings me to the Shroomery.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate



Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,775
Last seen: 3 days, 16 hours
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Icelander]
#7506600 - 10/10/07 06:49 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Icelander said: That's a conclusion I also came to. Then I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't ever be sure of anything. Then I came to the conclusion that I was really going to die and it didn't matter to anyone but me. Now I'm coming to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter to me either. This brings me to the conclusion that I am pretty silly. This brings me to the conclusion to try and have fun no matter what I think, believe or say. This brings me to the Shroomery.
AMEN HALLELULAJ LADIES AND GENTLEMENT JESUS DOTH WALK AMONG US



-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
|
PhanTomCat
Teh Cat....



Registered: 09/07/04
Posts: 5,908
Loc: My Youniverse....
Last seen: 14 years, 11 months
|
|
Quote:
EternalCowabunga said: But society needs the madman and his ilk, the underground.
This MUST the word of the week or something..... ILK....  I played my part, and am looking forward to next week....! 
>^;;^<
-------------------- I'll be your midnight French Fry.... "The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...." >^;;^<
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Lion]
#7508517 - 10/11/07 11:18 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
JESUS DOTH WALK AMONG US
So behave.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
Lion
Decadent Flower Magnate



Registered: 09/20/05
Posts: 8,775
Last seen: 3 days, 16 hours
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Icelander]
#7508769 - 10/11/07 12:30 PM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
-------------------- “Strengthened by contemplation and study, I will not fear my passions like a coward. My body I will give to pleasures, to diversions that I’ve dreamed of, to the most daring erotic desires, to the lustful impulses of my blood, without any fear at all, for whenever I will— and I will have the will, strengthened as I’ll be with contemplation and study— at the crucial moments I’ll recover my spirit as was before: ascetic.”
|
Booby
Agent Mulder

Registered: 09/14/05
Posts: 3,781
Last seen: 14 years, 1 month
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Lion]
#7518327 - 10/15/07 02:43 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
"I was conscious every moment in myself of many, very many elements absolutely opposite to that. I felt them positively swarming in me, these opposite elements. I knew that they had been swarming in me all my life and craving some outlet from me, but I would not let them, would not let them, purposely would not let them come out. They tormented me till I was ashamed: they drove me to convulsions and sickened me, at last, how they sickened me!"- Dostoevsky, Fyodor . Notes from the Underground
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DosNote.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div2
I knew that they had been swarming in me all my life and craving some outlet from me, but I would not let them (and so I became sick)
This is why we allow OTD. We don't have to read it. (Indeed I could hardly get thru the first paragraphs of Dostoevsky's notes from the underground)
|
mikebart101
Bromden



Registered: 08/01/06
Posts: 619
Loc: New England
Last seen: 11 years, 5 months
|
|
Quote:
EternalCowabunga said:
He lives as a kind of a twisted representation of his own truth. There really is no foundation of truth for the madman, just a tower of babel created by the madman's own determined inertia. He has piled the dualities so high up, surely he must be the smartest man that ever lived.
He keeps building higher and higher, and the game gets more dangerous as he realizes how hard the fall would be if he were to accept the ground. He is untrustworthy and sick.
The madman resides at the top of a very sturdy ladder, for he knows for a fact that the ground is made of shit.
-------------------- So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
|
Boots
Disenchanted


Registered: 07/25/07
Posts: 1,137
Loc: Northwood, Ohio, U.S.A.
Last seen: 15 years, 2 months
|
|
Your description of a madman can be applied to damn near everybody; at least in certain aspects. Was that the point?
|
mikebart101
Bromden



Registered: 08/01/06
Posts: 619
Loc: New England
Last seen: 11 years, 5 months
|
Re: what is a madman? [Re: Boots]
#7518654 - 10/15/07 08:21 AM (16 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
It was meant for those who would understand it.
The madman is a moral vigilante. He knows nothing of higher power or of the human condition, but he is aware of this at all times. He knows what he does not know and this is what drives him. He is searching for the answers. "Why are people like this?", he asks. He thinks a lot and again knows nothing. It drives him insane. All he knows is what is wrong. He is right by that matter. Being incorrect is his way of life; its factual. He can accept it unlike most of society. He thinks a lot.
The madman carries the ten commandments in his wallet and a 12 gage by his side; he gives change to the poor and has an unrelenting urge to kill the Pope.
-------------------- So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
|
psyka
Praetorian


Registered: 06/09/03
Posts: 1,652
|
|
A madman draws mountains as upside down V's and birds as m's but fully realizes that that what actually is, cannot be drawn, cannot be individualized, cannot be conceptualized, and cannot be properly understood with lines drawn.
-------------------- As the life of a candle, my wick will burn out. But, the fire of my mind shall beam into infinite.

|
|