07 On Paranoid Delusions

Then a young schizophrenic said, Speak to us of paranoid delusions.
And he answered, saying:

Paranoia will destroy ya. And yet I do still wonder. Have we really no right to be paranoid?

For though there be no mastermind, you may yet be the victims of a conspiracy. And though the monster be faceless, it may yet be out to get you. For you are naught but a number in a file on a data bank of a gargantuan, impersonal bureaucracy. As such, is it relevant whether “they” actually exist? And if not, then try telling that to “them”.

More often than not, perceptions of reality and definitions of sanity are naught but an exercise in democracy. Verily, schizophrenia is but a break from reality. This we know to be true. But who would be the arbiter of reality? You look to me, but am I aught but a raving lunatic?

Here a brief, but uneasy dissenting murmur made it’s way through the crowd. The prophet continued unfazed:

What can it mean to be “diagnosed” with schizophrenia? In the case of mental illness, diagnosis is really no more than the attaching of names to symptoms perceived.
If my doctor should inform me that appendicitis is the cause of my abdominal pains, then I shall gladly deem this a diagnosis. But to be “diagnosed” with schizophrenia is the equivalent of being told that one is suffering from abdominal pains.

May I quote Aldous Huxley?
“They are normal not in the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society”.

Schizophrenia then is the likely result of broad thinking. Even as the beating of a butterfly’s wings is inexorably linked to the surging price of gasoline, if you are to think too intensely about the incestuous bureaucratic sludge of an unaccountable, uncaring government, you will in all likelihood get your wires crossed. Ponder this at you own peril.