On the year's opening day, I came across mental illness twice on route to get coffee.
The first was someone in the cafe who was talking out loudly about a range of issues (including both her wide range of scientific research, and, suing Amanda Bynes); she’d talk into her phone, AI would respond, and she’d immediately cut it off into the next step of the conspiracy.
The second was an elderly woman, on a walker being guided, and she started waving to me like the Queen of England as I walked by, singing, “happy new year to you, happy new year to you, happy new year to you, happy new year to you” to the melody of the Happy Birthday song. Then she changed tone, almost like Sméagol to Gollum, and said, “don’t you fucking put that on Facebook.” I assured her I wouldn’t.
Neither of these things are that atypical in the privacy of your own mind (at least in mine—I think weirder things than suing Amanda Bynes, and will also loop absurd jingles and make abrupt persona switches), it’s just surprising when a stranger breaks a convention of normalcy in public. And what’s wrong with that? “Illness” is actually a terrible catch-all word for divergence, deviation, eccentricity. Of course, extreme mental variation can lead to illness (suffering), but it’s an assumption.
