Was I Mad? / April 25, 2014

So many people are telling me that they feel really disconnected from society, even to the extent that they feel they are going mad. From my perspective the requirements of success and integration to the current paradigm is the true madness. So if you feel a little bonkers, then stick with it. You are probably on the right track! 

Not too long ago I made the self-obsevation that:

"the times I've been most successful in life were simply the times I failed to notice that I wasn't".

You may have had to read that a couple of times and having done so may still be scratching your head trying to make sense of it. That was certainly my experience. It seemed nonsense and yet somewhere in that circular sentence something resonated.

I think I have come a little closer to what resonated over the past few days, and, as seems to be the case with most emergent truths recently, it feels a little uncomfortable.

To reflect on my earlier statement I guess I have to consider what is meant by success.

The most obvious measure of success in our society is financial. You may dress this up with the usual qualifiers about rich people such as "ah, but are they happy?" and the catch all "money can't buy you happiness". Whether you like it or not, the fact is that those with money have a greater impact on society than those with none.

My period of greatest success (in societal terms) was as a trader. I was financially successful and was climbing a ladder of influence in perhaps the most influential (i.e. financially powerful) industry of them all. To succeed in that environment required self discipline, self certainty and a fair degree of arrogance, but also considerable political nouse (i.e manipulative skill). 

The formula for success was the profile I see in so many of the structures of power in our society. It was useful to be a psychopathic narcisist with a mastery of the passive aggressive manipulation by which most people conduct their affairs. Psychopathic Narcissistic Disorder is a condition  "Manifest by a lack of empathy, an extreme sense of entitlement, and the need to be constantly worshiped and admired."

This is a marker for success in our current partiarchal society, and if it seems harsh to diagnose the world as one governed by mentally ill people, then reframe it as mentally imbalanced. So if you are feeling a little out of step with the rest of the world, chances are you are pretty well balanced! 

The time I was best aligned to society may actually have been the time of my greatest illness!

Love

Bill