A Reasonable Madness.
New Years Eve was only 11 weeks and 2 days ago. A new year stood before us, shining with possibility and grandeur. We expected good times, we expected bad times, but what we expected most was that this year was probably going to be different.
A presidential election was sure to bring contention, and while most of us thought the year might be a turbulent one, many of us had no idea of the chaos and darkness that was coming.
If someone had tried to explain it to you, you would have thought they had gone mad.
Because we’re living in the Twilight Zone right now. Business shut, lives shattered, history being engraved upon our hearts and minds. An enemy too small to see, too quick to contain, and too dangerous to be left unanswered.
In the midst of the suffering and sadness, the true story of our nature was being brought to light.
Because we humans practice a reasonable madness day after day.
There are those who see chaos as a time of enrichment, a way to reap from the labors of others. They hoard and they hurt, choosing to separate themselves from their humanity, and profit from the suffering and sadness of those around them.
Their madness is believing that their actions can be hidden in a day where everything is recorded, and where the digital signature of our lives can never be erased.
Their day will come, and their Karma will likely not be kind.
Then there are those who practice a different form of madness, where they risk their lives in the service of others. From a simplistic viewpoint, their madness is caring too much for the lives and well being of others, so much so that they are willing to take upon them the pains they would remove from another.
They give of their time, their health and their sanity to serve, to protect, to give, to love.
Theirs is the madness of greatness, often unappreciated, and rarely championed.
Yes, we humans are a strange species. We walk every day on the razors edge of madness, trying to find reason and understanding in a world that so often defies all logic and comprehension.
In the darkest times, we find those who adopt the nature of their demons, and those who shine out with the light of their inner angels.
And the darker the time, the greater the comparisons become.
Eventually, we know, this darkness will pass. Every day there are angels among us, carrying the burden of those whom they know, and protecting those who they don’t.
In some bright and shining day in the future, we will stand in their presence and thank them for their selfless service in a time when we all wondered if there would ever be light again.
Today, is our day to practice our own reasonable madness.
For never before have we had the chance to lift each other up, when we cannot reach out and touch. Never before have we been so connected in our ability to comfort and console, to strengthen and enlighten. Never has there been such a need, and never has there been such a possibility.
Today, and every day going forward, we get to choose how we write the stories of this pandemic.
Not the greater history, because that will always be written by those who are to come when they look back into the past, but we get to participate in the stories that will reside ever in the hearts of those to whom we reached out a hand, and lifted when there was little strength to rise.
Today is our day. Today is our time. Today is our history.
Take up your pen my friend, and begin writing.
And let’s make this a story worth telling.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings