On Insanity

Soto was a troubled Caribbean youth. He'd hang around the Strand at sunset spouting his Rastafarian riff hoping some dummy would pass a reefer his way. Everyone knew Soto was a Teef, he robbed Larry Salter with a spear gun he'd (borrowed) from the dive shop. Larry was a miserly old business Jew and had Soto thrown into the provincial jail.

At the time I was young and still belived in redemption so I took to talking to young Soto. I'd just graduated from college a few year back and had a lot of seemingly useless University knowledge formating my brain. I thought Rastafarianism uniquely existential and appeallingly political. I was tired of listening to Soto's disjointed Rasta ramblings so I asked him to write it down. By god, he did it. The missive was rambling and confused with lot's of I and I, Dread and Ja talk but it did carry a certain crazed narrative thread. For weeks after we went over the diatribe word by word. With I and I we talked about metaphysics, on dread I explained Kierkegaard, with Ja we talked of the patriarch and we produced a manifesto accentuating choice and responsibility. Unfortunately, Soto aquired a gun and shot old Larry Salter dead.

I'm glad I talked with him and sorry he shot Larry but what do you do with a nut? This is peculiar American problem. What do we do with the nuts? Does our constitution gaurantee the right to be disturbed, deranged and a danger to self and society? No but the overall lack of empathy and recognition allows and even encourages a steady supply of sociopathological proplem cases. Prisons spit them out, doctors overprescribe deadening medications that no sane or insane individual would willingly ever take and society isolates odd behavior.

The nut in Tucson complained about grammar. He had complicated and unusual thoughts that he could not express. Some call this schizophrenia but actually it is a lack of self expression and syntax. If you cannot make yourself known then the purgatory of isolation drives you to act irrationally, violently and against your native human good nature.

Involuntary isolation is a wonderful solution and it works. The AMA has a long history of behavioral quarantine. When I was a young man my mother volunteered my service to a nearby asylum. The kids were mostly mongoloid or birth damaged. Doctors in the 1950's advised that these kids be isolated. They were, without exception, great playmates. I had so much fun that summer. I made friends.

Isolation is the root cause of open dementia. Conversation is the answer. Talk therapy is something that can occur between any two individuals and it is drug free.

I didn't save Soto but he did have a grudge. Maybe Larry Salter shouldn't have been such a hard ass and Soto should have surrendered to his better instincts but life is quirky and now and agian a nut will slip through but be brave, dodge the bullets and knock the bastards down. Before the critical eruption extend a kind word or an offer of humanity. Kindness is the cure.