True Insanity

In entertainment or in everyday social interactions, one might see someone joke, or maybe even sincerely say, that they are "going insane" if they start forgetting details about their daily lives.  Comparatively minor examples like forgetting where they placed a television remote could stir up anxiety about what a more general, thorough breakdown or shift in memory or sensory perceptions would be like.  It might really feel as if one would be insane if all of the sudden sensory experiences would shift from moment to moment so that it seemed like objects are appearing or disappearing, or if all of the sudden it was difficult to retrieve or keep memories about relatively basic practical things.  It might seem to some people like they would be insane if they cannot so much as simply relate to what others claim to perceive on this kind of level.

True insanity is nevertheless not at all the involuntarily perception of external environments or objects that are not there and is not the perception of external objects that are there; no one with human limitations can even know if all of their sensory experiences are more than just that, mental perceptions within their consciousness as opposed to actual physical things.  The seemingly numerous people who assume and believe that they can know their daily experiences connect with the external world, that their memories of events are accurate, or that they can know the existence and contents of other minds, to give just some examples, are utterly delusional--they have succumbed to the true, voluntary insanity of irrationalism in its many forms.

Anyone can be insane, no matter the state of their mental health in a pathological sense.  Even when a person's sensory perceptions and memories are abnormal or illusory as in the case of psychosis, not that anyone can truly know if many such experiences are illusory, they are always capable of holding onto rationality at least by recognizing logical axioms and the existence of their own consciousness.  No demon from hell or mental disorder could ever stop a person from, even with a vague sort of focus, realizing or dwelling on these truths that they would be relying on even to simply exist or perceive anything at all.  To not be capable of directly knowing these things is to not exist as a consciousness at all.  As it turns out, the emotional or social difficulties in fully embracing rationalism deter even those who do not have psychological disorders from recognizing or living for these core truths, which they could have absolutely no excuse for not discovering.

The only true and deepest kind of insanity is the one all of these lifelong non-rationalists relate to.  It is the insanity of rejecting or ignoring reason and the truths that it grounds and reveals.  To reject the uncaused cause, the logical possibility of morality, or the probabilistic evidence for Christianity is also insane, as is any other assumption, contradictory belief, or irrationalistic neglect of any grand truth about possibility or necessity.  There is but one way to discover and hold to genuine sanity: to unite one's beliefs with the objective laws of logic and intentionally refrain from believing anything that is either false (if it contradicts reason or some other truth) or unverifiable.  In this sole and true sanity, a love of reality can take hold as each rationalist comes to life in ways that are otherwise impossible.