Definitions- A Discourse on Good, Evil, and Sanity. | Teen Ink

Definitions- A Discourse on Good, Evil, and Sanity.

February 23, 2009
By Luke Babich BRONZE, St. Louis, Missouri
Luke Babich BRONZE, St. Louis, Missouri
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

(May want to read the description at the bottom)
I am as sane as the next man. Probably more so. The literal definition of 'sanity' of course being 'soundness of judgment or reason.' Or both. But then, what is soundness? In good condition. Hmm... condition, perhaps, then? Does it bear the weight of miscalculation, does it offer the loophole through which the trapped beast may escape? A mode or state of being. A good mode of state or being. No. It is good, it is the indecisive tremor in its unspoken voice, an utterance lying dormant like a seed waiting for a tongue to give it life. Good, the measure of quality before the eyes of some presumably 'good' being. But there are so many meanings... which one is it? Which one forms the jacket pinning my arms to my sides? Which one bars the whitewashed door and walls against me?
Being positive or desirable in nature; not bad or poor. I am undesirable? That's it, beyond a doubt. Positive, or desirable. In who's eyes? Who would presume to take upon themselves the mantle of goodness only to withhold it from others? I should strike them down in an instant, to have set a standard too high for me to reach, a step too tall for me to climb! What ignorance, what egotism! What.... evil! To snatch away the hope of acceptance, to shape a definition beyond its original bounds, twist it in one's own image and call it 'good.' To deny me hope! To call me cast down and wicked, lost!
If I am lost, please, show me the way! If I am wicked, let me atone! If I am cast down, then by whom, at who's command? The invisible hand of the preternatural reaching from the nether to smite us with its immortal shield of idealism. To hold me to that ideal, to that strictest of tenets of goodness. No. It is they who are wicked, it is they who are evil and bad!
And if they are bad, and I am what they are not, must then I be good? No... what is good? If not a standard of moral discipline, a pair of immaculate saintly shoes ill-befitting my misshapen feet, if not a strict unyielding pair of shoes which so many have tried to force upon me, then what is good?! Is it any of these other cruel, poorly crafted things? These harsh things made for another but still imposed upon me? Is it this coat which denies my right to move? Is it this room, these soft padded walls which deny my right to pain? Is it this whole god-forsaken world into which I was left as if by cosmic oversight, a grid, a puzzle into which all others were shaped and molded to fulfill a role of meaning, save me? What is it that I did, to not slide amid the gears and cogs of this well-oiled contraption, this infinitely revolving world of gas and steam and spinning and whirring, all parts meticulously placed against one another, who did I offend and in what life to have made me ME?
To be so horribly disfigured, so horribly alien and wretched as to not fit into the very world in which I live, if such an existence can be called life?! Why am I evil? For the blood on these hands, so calloused and sore to even feel the weight of their deed? WHY?! What is good? Why can I not reach it? Shouldn't I be able to do anything, if I only try, if I only want it enough?
No.
Good: Serving the desired purpose or end; suitable.
That's me. Not a moral question, not a question of right or wrong. Mine is a question of place, a question of a jigsaw puzzle with a single malformed piece.
Simply
Not
Fit.

The author's comments:
Written from the perspective of a person in an insane asylum. Walking the edge of madness makes one wonder if we can ever really stray so far from the world, or if the world just moves away from us.

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