The Loneliness of Sanity
Truth is not decided by majority rule. Truth, in fact, is not decided. Truth simply is. Once discovered, however, it is our decision to affirm or deny it. What follows is the consequence of that decision.
Since discovering the truth is a function of the intellect, sanity is a prerequisite. Sanity, however, is a solitary act and therefore not an attribute of the crowd. Any evidence found to the contrary is nothing more than a remnant of individuality in the final stages of decay. Although there may be safety in numbers, this does not apply to sanity. So anyone devoted to the truth will necessarily find that they are living in solitude. Eventually, solitude turns to loneliness and this becomes truth's most formidable opponent and our biggest dilemma.
But who could blame anyone for shunning the desolation of the "road-less-traveled” for the bustling thoroughfare of the all-embracing mob - albeit - an amorphous blob of hot molten lava that engulfs and homogenizes everything in its path. After all, individualism is hard. One must trust their own mind to discover and integrate the facts of reality into a rational view of life and then, into a rational way of living, even when opposing forces prevail. Truth can only be declared by the lone intellect, never by the consensus of the crowd. This means standing alone, or if fortune allows, amongst those with similar values. This, however, is not a collective. This is a group of independent thinkers: a group of individuals who are in accord, not because each has sacrificed his individuality to a common gang, but because each, perfectly independent of the others, has apprehended a common truth. Their alliance converges only within intellectual boundaries. Any-and-all accidental differences between them are irrelevant, including place and time.
Truth is all there is and a sound mind is all we have to grasp it with. To abandon the mind is to abandon the truth. However, the truth does not forsake us. It remains forever by our side and rules objectively for better or for worse. When we align ourselves with it, we command its force. When we challenge it, we bear witness to its omnipotence. Because dismissing it places us in harms way, we instinctively huddle together for protection and validation. This false sense of security allows our misconduct to go unchecked and our mistakes to go uncorrected. Our only guide to action is group behavior. To think and act apart from the crowd is tantamount to treason, punishable by exile. Once banished, however, the secretly admired ideas and achievements of the persecuted are, not surprisingly, co-opted by their persecutors. Because, however, these innovations were not born of their own intellectual and creative powers, they are unable to understand, sustain or keep them from corruption.
And so, the crowd is actually dependent upon the individual it condemns and ostracizes. The individual, on the other hand, is autonomous, yet, has the ability to embrace his tormentors, but under no circumstances will abandon his mind in exchange for their acceptance. Ironically, he is more useful to his adversaries, standing alone, alienated, making progress he would never have otherwise made and sharing it with all, including his detractors. He pays the high price of isolation to preserve his intellect. He uses that intellect to create and produce. Those who have shunned him now benefit from the mind they have so vehemently opposed. They gorge on the fruits of his hard labor while instinctively searching for the next iconoclast to excommunicate. How many individuals have lost themselves to the crowd before they ever found themselves? How many intellects have been crushed by the clumsy, non-thinking multitudes? How much progress has not been realized and forever lost because the uniqueness of just one single person has been sacrificed to the uniformity of the tribe?
And so the question arises: Do we join the crowd or stand alone? We admire the individual who transcends all obstacles to achieve his values; yet, we dismiss his mode of life as being fanatical, impractical and disruptive. We find it quite inspiring to watch others in the exalted role of truth seeker, yet seem to prefer the contrived hullabaloo of the crowd. Our lives are improved by the brilliant ideas and inventions that spring from the minds of these men. We proudly identify with them, because, after all, we are members of the same species. Or are we? Perhaps zoologically, but that's where it seems to end. Do we not see the difference between the relentless pursuit of truth and the relentless pursuit of comfort? What we find inconvenient and unrealistic, they find sacred and indispensable. While we are willing to forfeit our sanity for acceptance, they are willing to forfeit acceptance for their sanity.
These mortals are different. Who else, instinctively, puts mind before mood and right before easy? Who chooses freedom within the bounds of just one rational head, rather than confinement amongst many irrational ones? And who else, in the name of truth, is willing to honorably assume and peacefully endure, each and every moment, of each and every day, for an entire lifetime, the loneliness of sanity?
https://www.healthrealizations.com/ConsultativeHealthandNutrition/Home.aspx
718.934.7806
drmlh@optonline.net
As a natural health consultant for over 25 years Mark Houllif has been teaching the scientific principles of health promotion. The goal is to guide the individual back to health using natural and nutritonal methods. By removing the causes of disease and establishing conditions of health we allow the body to most powerfully manifest its natural healing tendencies.
