The Plunge... Life on the Edge of Madness

“Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through.” R. D. Laing

The Beach, January 1, 2009, 9:00 AM.

The Asylum doors opened, and the escaping Madness materialized as this day dawned in sunlit splendor.

The crowd, approaching 100 nut cases, was assembled in a tightly-huddled mass of nearly-nude bodies, hovering on the edge of the swirling and angry waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The scene comprised the collective commitments of the previous Eve, a time when hasty but prodigal Resolutions were made, bolstered by sufficient quantities of liquid spirits, machismo or plain dumb bravado.

We, The Intrepid, were here to plunge perfectly healthy and unwilling bodies into the icy gray waters of the churning sea. This assault upon the sea was sheer madness, all for the ludicrous rewards of beach towels or cocktail boasting rights. Imagine such folly!

The inmates, stripped down to the bare essentials, shivered uncontrollably in the howling frigid air with wind chills into the 30’s. In spite of the lunacy of the scene, nothing but laughs, smiles and exuberant chatter could be heard throughout the crowd, giddy with excitement, bearing testimony to the fact that lunatics can be found anywhere, even on beaches.

At precisely 9:00 AM, and in one accord, the herd in a unified frenzy committed itself to the mercy of the crashing waves. Wild shouts of joy, or pain, or hallucinatory visions erupted from The Intrepid. The spectators, clothed and still in their right minds, watched incredulously from a safe distance the chaos of The Plunge.

It all ended as quickly as it began. The white bodies, reddened by the glacial, icy sea hastily retreated to the security of a towel, or cup of hot chocolate or, for some, to the comfort of Southern Comfort, which got them there in the very first place.

Sanity, in witness to this extreme absurdity, could only be heard uttering the shortest, unanswerable sentence in the language, “Why?” Freud, in his most lucid moment, marveled at this cosmic conundrum. The closest answer to this question is perhaps found in the last words of Timothy Leary, when he flung to the heavens his inexpressible frustration (just as his ashes were later hurled into space), “Why not? Why not” Why not? Yeah!”

The contemporary Age of Enlightenment has come to embrace a life on the edge of madness…the coexistence of lunacy with lucidness, madness with morality, and a wide gray sea of relative values. The year 2008 has aptly demonstrated the ugly failure of systems and philosophies, not to mention moral values. We have been bludgeoned senseless by the madness of the media mob as it feasted on one dying corpse after another. To say “we’ve had enough” is an understatement, and apparently just more wasted words cast silently into the ethereal nether-world where echoes reverberate endlessly without response.

Who can deny that culture as we know it today stands on the very edge of a watery chaos, teeming with ambivalence and fearful of the “what-ifs” cast ashore by the turbulent waves. Who, but stark, raving fools, would take The Plunge into that swirling abyss? The words of the prophet, Dr. Thompson, come to mind: “It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.”

As the maddening crowd huddled on the beach on this day, Possibility overcame Fear, salt water healed the scars of financial lashings, and most of all, Triumph trumped Timidity. As we entered, so did we emerge, united in the baptism of another year, fresh from the depths of despair and chanting in unison into a new-born day the words of Friedrich Nietzsche: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

At least that’s what I heard, what I felt, what I observed, as our crowd, mad with longing for exuberant life, took The Plunge and welcomed 2009 into the world. And in the prescient words of Mark Twain, “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”

Life on the Edge of Madness…”Why not? Why not? Why not? Yeah!” See you there!

Bud Hearn
January 8, 2009