Discourses from the Cauldron

I read Hamlet a few times, and decided that Hamlet was crazy. He was seeing things; he was paranoid; he talked to himself (yes those were soliloquies, but still). It sounds like schizophrenia. Or perhaps I am wrong and there is some "method to [his] madness." Regardless, on my first read of Hamlet, I was intrigued by the concept of what is sanity and how one loses it. Even before that time, the concept of the insane was a preoccupation for me. Growing up, particularly in high school my greatest fear was that I would lose my sanity. I am sure that this is not a normal phobia for high school students, but it was a concern for me. Perhaps it was because I have always had a desire to think in a perfectly rational way, and insanity would be the most noteworthy threat to that goal. Or maybe the thought of thinking in different thoughts and thought patterns than I thought that I will always think with, was a thought that I could not get my mind around... much like this sentence. Or It could be that I would occasionally have the inclination to do something that was outside the realm of normal behaviour and in some cases, I saw no reason to inhibit this behaviour other than for the reason that it was not normal. For instance, one time, I spent an entire shift at work trying to make a light switch go off when someone moved a stack of bread crates out of the way (for further enlightenment on this issue see the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIvGLOJPels ). While it was mildly amusing, it was definitely outside of the realm of things into which people would normally invest 8 hours. After putting a lot of thought into this irrational fear (pun intended), I concluded that I was not crazy and did not want to fall into the deep end of the madness pool (but sometimes it is fun to wade in the shallows). I have heard that there is a fine line between genius and insanity, and I imagine that this is true. I no longer fear insanity in the same manner as I had once done, but I am still intrigued by that line. I wonder where it is and how one crosses it. Perhaps someday I will know.