Veronika Decides to Die
Veronika Decides to Die
"Insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It's as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that's going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don't understand the language they speak there."-- Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides To Die
one of those sentences that sound good but don't make much sense to me.
turning it around, do you feel insane when you are in a foreign country? of course not.
is a psychopath inable to communicate his thoughts? no; he is merely totally inable to understand other people's feelings.
is a clinically-depressive person inable to describe his feelings? depending on your school of psychological thought, he will have a chemical inbalance in his brain or he will let his life be over-controlled by negative emotions -- but inarticulation is not his greatest problem.
turning it around, do you feel insane when you are in a foreign country? of course not.
is a psychopath inable to communicate his thoughts? no; he is merely totally inable to understand other people's feelings.
is a clinically-depressive person inable to describe his feelings? depending on your school of psychological thought, he will have a chemical inbalance in his brain or he will let his life be over-controlled by negative emotions -- but inarticulation is not his greatest problem.
martino
the sentence shouldnt be taken literally. it was stated metaphorically. i didnt feel insane when i went to Hongkong, but i felt like i wuz close to being one cuz i couldnt understand the people around me and vice versa. a simple underwear with a particular size i wuz askin for couldnt be understood because of language barrier. have u ever felt like writing or saying something but u couldnt express urself very well or juz cant simply put it into words and you reach a point where u get so frustrated u feel like losin it? that's juz what it means. people get or sometimes act crazy, throwing tantrums and shit, totally actin up because they get frustrated of something they cant do and juz loses that string that holds their sanity. it wuz bein compared to that. the writer wuz not tryinna make an impression of sounding deep. it wuz a simple comparison. read the book. then maybe you'll get what it simply means.
ok -- i can agree with you that "foreign county culture shock" a swell metaphor for feeling frustrated, in case that is what paolo was trying to say
and next time i disagree with a sentence, i'll try to find time to read the whole book in which the sentence is written! will you be paying my salary in the mean time, dear cesxy?
and next time i disagree with a sentence, i'll try to find time to read the whole book in which the sentence is written! will you be paying my salary in the mean time, dear cesxy?
We've got a good debate here, I like it.
Most of the people I am a caregiver for at my job are mentally ill adults. They are not violent, just a little strange, some of them. In a certain sense it is an inability to speak the same language, but a lot of it is a fear of what others would THINK of them if they DID articulate their thoughts and feelings and sensations. Some of them might talk to "their voices" for awhile, but the minute they are in a situation with real people around, they shut up, act normal, and aren't likely to share with people what is going on in their minds.
I've been perplexed at times as to how to convince someone that their delusions (false beliefs) do not actually exist in reality and they needn't heed or be afraid of them.
Saying outright that they are mistaken usually won't get you anywhere.
I guess I'm not sure about this: is being insane really just about speaking another language, not being able to communicate? I'll have to think about it some more...
I would like to share an exchange though between one of my favorite residents in the house I work in, and her (admittedly quacky) doctor. She had just finished giving this long monologue about how she believes the F.B.I. had put a chip in her brain and were responsible for getting a doctor of hers fired for prescribing her diet pills or some such strangeness, and she ended the monologue by saying "I'm not lying." Her doctor said (and I do not believe this is the right way to address the mentally ill) "Well, but I worry about your imagination sometimes." She said with a chuckle: "My imagination's not lying, either."
I thought that was downright funny.
Most of the people I am a caregiver for at my job are mentally ill adults. They are not violent, just a little strange, some of them. In a certain sense it is an inability to speak the same language, but a lot of it is a fear of what others would THINK of them if they DID articulate their thoughts and feelings and sensations. Some of them might talk to "their voices" for awhile, but the minute they are in a situation with real people around, they shut up, act normal, and aren't likely to share with people what is going on in their minds.
I've been perplexed at times as to how to convince someone that their delusions (false beliefs) do not actually exist in reality and they needn't heed or be afraid of them.
Saying outright that they are mistaken usually won't get you anywhere.
I guess I'm not sure about this: is being insane really just about speaking another language, not being able to communicate? I'll have to think about it some more...
I would like to share an exchange though between one of my favorite residents in the house I work in, and her (admittedly quacky) doctor. She had just finished giving this long monologue about how she believes the F.B.I. had put a chip in her brain and were responsible for getting a doctor of hers fired for prescribing her diet pills or some such strangeness, and she ended the monologue by saying "I'm not lying." Her doctor said (and I do not believe this is the right way to address the mentally ill) "Well, but I worry about your imagination sometimes." She said with a chuckle: "My imagination's not lying, either."
I thought that was downright funny.
i believe it's not literally speaking another language cuz i do speak another language (plus one dialect), but i dont base my quasi insanity with it. it is being likened to it though. most of the time i have opinions and thoughts that some people do not agree with (esp. wen im stoned) and they see me as crazy for juz thinking and saying things that are strange to them. and when i find someone or several people that agree with my thought pattern with which the majority do not agree with...they see us as a bunch of loonies...strange (but not queer though)...or eccentric and sometimes i believe them. sometimes i find myself asking in head am i insane??? have the different substance i tried and still been taking affected my brain?? have i been totally influenced with the stuff i read and the people i mingle with and listen to?? sometimes i dont speak out my thoughts because i know that the people around me wouldnt catch my drift or would harshly disagree and would think me strange but sometimes i think and behave the way they do when i find their judgement or conclusion as unsound. so if not being ble to express freely our thoughts and actions because the majority does not find it fit, then i would like to think that each of us has our own insanity in us...but then again that is my "peculiar" opinion...