Recently a new friend asked if a mutual acquaintance is really, truly, crazy. I shrugged a yes; this is an obvious conclusion based not just on character but also on behavior.
What amazed me was the question – how anyone could be tricked in to believing otherwise, when the facts are so obvious to anyone who cares to look.
I’m not the one to sensitively listen when your love affair with a poet, guru, or rock star goes awry. I’m not the one who can simulate surprise when your suicidal cousin does the deed. I fail, routinely, in all the simple sympathetic tasks, mostly because I expect the worst, and I have never been disappointed.
Hateful people are filled with hate. The delusional are deluded. The sick are sickly. Crazy is as crazy does. Etc. Hiding behind religion, philosophy, a career in the creative arts, science, or whatever does not change these facts.
The only trouble for me is… I like em like that. In fact, I broke off contact with the aforesaid mutual acquaintance not because he was demonstrably crazy, and a liar, but rather because he was boring. And because he wore sandals.