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Insanity

What may seem insane for you may not be for another. One definition involves trying to accomplish different results from doing the same thing. How do you define insanity?

Insanity

Well, Neo, I don't think the definition you mention is a true definition for insanity. It is one we like to use to make light of something. However, insanity is a mental disorder. It is much more than doing the same thing repeatidly hoping for different results.

There are several definitions. What it takes to be considered clinically insane, for example, is different from what it takes to be criminally insane.

To be criminally insane, generally, the individual must not know that their actions are illegal.

To be clinically insane is different, although, actually, the term is usually not heard these days. It is not really politically correct to use it. Rather, we use the specific term for whatever it is with which a person is afflicted.

Insanity Health & Special Psychology

I don't believe Neo says it is the definition, he merely says it is one definition.

Personally, for me... the answer is simple and you will not find this in any book; if someone who says he is sane says something is insane, it is because it is not understood by the one saying it.

Insanity

There are varying degrees of insanity, different levels of mental illness, and certainly different causes and effects. Here is a simple example of one aspect of insanity:

I stood behind a man in line at the post office a while ago. He was wearing cut-off jeans, work boots and crew socks, and a white t-shirt. After a few minutes, I realized he was also carrying a purse, and that the sleeves on the shirt were rolled up high on his biceps, and his hair was pulled back in a woman's style ponytail. When he turned his head, I could see that he was wearing very heavy makeup; then I realized it was actual *paint* made to look like a woman's makeup -- it was flaking in large pieces.

To me, this is insanity on a "low" level. He's a functioning person (he was able to wait in line calmly, and complete a transaction to purchase a money order), but he dresses odd and is apparently trying to look like a woman even though he's a man. The fact that he used paint on his face and eyes, rather than real makeup, tips you off to the fact that he's not "just" homosexual or transvestite; he's crazy.

In my opinion, of course.
Roz

Insanity

Insanity is more of a journey than a destination, and is almost always a product of one's inmost decisions. People do not instantly wake up on a Tuesday morning, look in the mirror, and say, "Oops! Looks like I'm insane today." I would say that insanity can finally be identified and defined at the point where one completely loses control of his or her emotions and thoughts.

Insanity

Insanity for me is when you cannot recognize right from wrong and when you pretend that you're someone else, you know...when you cannot difference fanstasy from reality.

Insanity

Well, in that case, all of you who fill in lottery are insane

The best definition I can come up with is that your intellectual and emotional levels are not balances. That is, either you are smarter than you are sensitive, or vice versa.

An example of the former would be someone who really doesn't take reason into consideration, and only his desires and emotions. That would be the ones who cannot differ reality from fantasy.

Rain man would be an example of the latter. A walking calculator, he may seem a genius when asked what 1232983 * 3342443 is , but when it comes to every day matters, when emotion is needed, he is completely incapable of doing a thing.

Still, although in some sense innate, you can bend it to be slightly more equally balanced, like what happened to Rainman

Edited: Smudge on 18th Nov, 2004 - 1:36am