To Be Taken with a Handful of Salt

I remember when I lost my mind.
There was something so pleasant about that phase...
even your emotions had an echo
in so much space.

- Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy"


There are times lately when I'm sure I am slowly going insane.

Insanity, which I am defining today, for the moment, as lacking a reference point. A fixed spot in time and space and emotions and understanding by which you can measure everything else. You know where "there" is only by knowing where "here" is. You know happiness only in relation to sadness, up in relationship to down, now in relationship to then. The right path is only right in comparison to all the wrong ones. Without a reference point, you are left floating in a dimensionless sea of "where am I, who am I, where am I going and what the fuck do I do from here?"

I'm thinking too much. Which is only too much, mind you, in comparison to not enough. Not that I would know what is enough, or too much, or not enough at all, because, you see, I've lost my reference point. I'm freefalling through a maze of principles and standards and ideas and desires, trying to hold onto just one thing I believe is immutably true. But everything I grab just turns to ashes in my fingers as I realize that, no, that truth is not universally true, either. That standard is not iron-clad, that principle, too, I am willing to throw away for that desire.

I'm having a difficult time making judgements, or evaluating the actions of others. I'm turning the offhand comments of friends into monumental statements about me, them, our friendship, and the meaning of life. I'm taking offense where I have a sneaking suspicion I should not and not taking offense (or, at least, not doing anything about it) at times I feel I probably should. I'm manufacturing dramas out of ether and then starting to believe them. But, lacking a reference point for what is meant casually, what is meant seriously, what is real, what is fake, what is acceptable and what is not, I wouldn't really know for sure. I just don't trust my instincts these days. I don't know what, if anything, I actually believe. And I certainly don't know what the fuck I do from here.

The closest I think I ever really came to insanity was a five day stretch I spent on a beach in Goa, India. I was reminded of this time the other day when I was going through old travelogue emails from that trip. (Though I didn't actually need to be reminded; the impact of those five days is always present and will stay with me forever.)

I spent five days in a shanty up on a cliff overlooking the rocky beach of Arambol. I'd come to Goa, the infamous party destination for backpackers the world over, in search of companionship. Some laid-back times with easy beach friends, parties, good times, long conversations, lots of fresh fruit, even more fresh ganja. I didn't find that in Arambol. (I did, later, in Palolem, but that's another story.) In fact, I really couldn't find anyone in Arambol that I work up the energy to talk to.

So I didn't talk. To anyone, except the waiters at my daily haunts, and then only to order. I retreated inward. I had no sense of time but the sun. I slept till I woke, I ate when I was hungry. I read, I swam, I lay in the sun, I walked the beach, I stared off into space. Actually, I think I spent most of the five days staring off into space in some way.

The first day was sad. I was lonely and felt like I was missing this great party somewhere that I just couldn't find. Resignation came the second day, when I started to realize this was not the social spot I was seeking...and yet the place was so beautiful I couldn't leave just yet.

The third day was when it started to get a little scary. It was the morning of this day I decided to actively not seek people out, to embrace this vow of silence for a few days and see where it took me. And oh did it take me -- to places I didn't know my mind could go, to ideas I'd never before entertained, to conclusions that surprised me and to revelations both painful and joyous. I dug deep and, sorry to sound incredibly cheesy here, but I learned a whole lot about myself.

It was on the fourth day that I was pretty sure I was close to insanity. That was the day I lost my reference point, just a bit. My mind was everywhere and nowhere. For an hour, I would have absolutely no focus; for the next, I would focus intently on one tiny, tiny point - a phrase in a book, a rock in the sea. I'm sure it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I've truly never had an experience like this.

And then on the fifth day came calm. Perhaps it was because I knew I was moving on the next day, and that I would go back to speaking with people again, but I began to revel in my silence, to embrace it. I loved my brief hermit lifestyle. I shunned others. I wanted to be alone. And my mind, sent off on far flung travels, came back to me, refreshed, with a new sense of clarity.

This current freefall (or is it freeflying? or freefloating? Not knowing up from down, I can't be too sure) isn't really the same as that time in Goa, except for the feeling of lacking a reference point. The feeling of approaching insanity is the same, though the causes and effects and all the rest are different.

Last time, when I finally grabbed onto a point of reference again, everything else in my life for a moment became crystal clear...and indeed, I look upon that five day stretch in Goa as some of the most important and meaningful days in my life. It was absolutely worth that brush with insanity, however terrifying it was.

So I hold out hope that this current mess, too, will prove useful. I hold out hope that these long days and longer nights will be worth it. I hold out hope that my reference point is out there, and that when I get there it will be a better place than wherever I was before.

...and hey, maybe I'll get a book out of it. Weren't all the best novels written by authors gone entirely nutty?