The Madman's Lure

I should rather fancy chancing upon a madman and perhaps befriending him, if only for a short while, for the desire to defeat ennui is one of the prime motives of life. 'He speaks the words of another, and not his own,' some of you may cry, and there is truth in what you say. These thoughts are hardly my own, but throughout history, where has one ever come upon an original thought?

This madman, I spoke of, would be the most delightful creature indeed, for he would be the epitome of disorder. Rule-books can be shredded without second thoughts, as can books on psychology and those explaining human behaviour. While an anarchist would go out of his way to defy the rules and processes in front of him, a madman would simply go about life as if such things never existed, which would leave you in a state of perpetual wonder.

And wonderment is what we all live to see in this world. We all desperately ache for change and for experiences which are new heretofore. We want to travel to new places and meet new people, for habitual places, like old faces, are boring after a while. We all want to meet that enigma, who will surprise us with his every action, and we want to delight as spectators of these acts. This madman is the answer to all those yearnings.

Through his loopy eyes, you can seldom tell what goes on inside that head of unkempt hair. You cannot know if he means his words or if he is lying with the straightest face, for a madman cannot tell between truth and lie. He says whatever he fancies. His smile mayn't be a smile, but a cry of anguish, and perhaps he will hug you in a warm embrace prior to plunging a dagger into the centre of your heart. But he will be the most delightful creature indeed! - a world different from the hackneyed persons of today, who can all be reasoned with, and worse, explained.

But we lock away the madman as soon as we see him, for we fear him as much as we love him. Hypocrisy, which is the fluid that is pumped red through our veins, desires to protect us from the very character who we know will fill our lives with colour and music! We mustn't have friends who can't be trusted, after all, for they will hurt us and perhaps become reasons of our deaths. It is rather bewildering that the two things we humans desire the most, trustworthiness and impulsive-recklessness, cannot occur together.

If you must be trusted, I need to be able to explain you; and the moment I can do that, you will cease to fascinate me. But if you can't be trusted, I cannot allow myself the risk of your presence.