Don't Bother Reading This Bit
Every morning when I wake up it seems that the absurdity pixies have been busy with their phantasmagorical paintbrushes and a huge pot of surreal paint. In fact the preceding dream is often more real. I wanted to call this collection "The Age of Absurdity" which unfortunately is already the title of a book by Michael Foley. It is, nevertheless, somehow reassuring that at least one other person has shared at least one of my thoughts. Reassuring in the sense that American psychologists might not invent a mental illness to describe my personality if we exist in sufficient numbers to be regarded "normal". I may not make it into DSM-6 as Cooper's Disorder and will have to be satisfied with just being part of the general disorder we all belong to; that is the undiagnosed.Therein lies the problem with medicalising any behaviour deviating from the norm, whether it is the normal or the abnormal that is the norm, whether that question is in any sense important or merely semantically interesting. I was watching Channel 5's, yes I am Channel 5's viewer, The Wright Stuff the other day and they were discussing "lying about being pregnant". The immediate reaction from the panel was a cry of "mental illness" rather than a moan about human beings doing one of the things we do incessantly, manipulating each other. The words bitch. bastard and alike exist for good reason. We should use them more often except not the C one because apparently that's offensive... which is surely the point?
It is, of course, possible that over the next few decades the entire human race will slowly go irreparably insane and indeed I think it quite likely. I believe it to be an entirely appropriate and proportional reaction to the world we live in. We may all wake up one morning and collectively decide to stay in bed... forever. Make sure you keep a colouring in book in your bedside cabinet and leave your phone downstairs.
My personal preference for the demise of humanity is for a nuclear war or a zombie apocalypse mostly out of admiration for the 1984 BAFTA award winner "Threads" and an inquisitive appetite. Have you ever wondered what the human brain tastes like?