Hypersanity

Thoughts on language, politics, modern culture

Monday, February 22, 2010

That's My Stop...

Pigeons follow roads and landmarks to navigate

Posted by Franco at 9:53 AM

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About Me

Franco

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It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society - Krishnamurti

What is hypersanity?

Much of comedy is hypersane. Where the truth lies is where hypersanity begins. Comedy creates a paradox of truth and society whereby the result (punchline) is a shocking disconnect which our consciousness cannot process in the usual manner, causing laughter.

All hypersanity is not comedy however. Societies' many insane agreements and distortions can provoke anger or depression in the hypersane. Hypersanity is often ridiculed and dismissed, outlawed or treated as an illness or mislabeled as insanity. Hypersanity is a form of informed skepticism. It is skepticism of everything including skepticism itself.

Children are for the most part hypersane.

Hypersanity is not wisdom, but it is accurate observation.

Social conditioning is not the enemy of hypersanity but it should always be a mistrusted friend, not an authority. Hypersanity is masculine, sanity is feminine. Both are real and both are needed.

Hypersanity is the knowledge that words are tools and language is an artificial template imposed on reality. The realization that language is tautological and limited and the suspicion that the unknown is infinite.

reality and sanity

My own suspicion is that the universe is not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose. - John B.S. Haldane (via Terrence Mc Kenna)

As I shall be using the word "reality" again I should make it plain at once that I use it to mean "everything that exists". This is, of course, a highly idiosyncratic use of the word. I am aware that it is commonly used by sane people to mean "everything that human beings understand about", or even "human beings". This illustrates the interesting habit, on the part of the sane, of investing any potentially dangerous word with a strong anthropocentric meaning. Let us therefore consider the use of "reality" a little longer.

It is first necessary to consider what might be meant by the word "reality" if it were usually used to mean "everything that exists". It would have to include all processes and events in the Universe, and all relationships underlying them, regardless of whether or not these things were perceptible or even conceivable by the human mind. It would also include the fact that anything exists at all -- i.e. that there is something and not nothing. And it would include the reason for the fact that anything exists at all, although it is most improbable that this reason is conceivable, or that "reason" is a particularly good name for it.

In fact it is quite obvious that to most people "reality" does not mean anything like this.

Particular attention should be drawn to the phrase 'running away from reality' in which "reality" is almost always synonymous with "human beings and their affairs". For example: "It isn't right to spend so much time with those stuffy old astronomy books. It's running away from reality. You ought to be getting out and meeting people." (An interest in any aspect of reality requiring concentrated attention in solitude is considered a particularly dangerous symptom.) This usage leads to the interesting result that if anyone does take any interest in reality he is almost certain to be told that he is running away from it. - Celia Green, The Human Evasion

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