The third way I stay sane is a fiat decision to stay sane.
My mental landscape contains that option; I take it.
This is the point I am even less expecting to be helpful, or to correspond to any actionable sort of plan for most readers.
Some years ago, I had a friend who told me she was still anorexic even though the reason she originally acquired anorexia no longer applies[1].
I responded “Have you considered not being anorexic?” She thought about it and replied something like “No, actually.”
Two weeks later she thanked me for helping to cure her anorexia.
This is the type of advice that I expect to be profoundly unhelpful to >95% of people in that position (and indeed is rightfully lampooned approximately everywhere). Yet it was the exact thing this specific person needed to hear, and hopefully “you can just decide to stay sane” is the exact thing some small fraction of people reading your post needed to hear as well.
Someone mentioned “mass hysteria” above. I think there are cases where, surrounded by a certain culture or context, people feel positive-tribal-emotions about going insane. If that’s true, it seems perhaps quite helpful—to some particular people, in some particular context—for a Big Tribal Leader (or a friend!) to say, “I strongly recommend not going insane! To the extent that this seems interpretable as a choice, I strongly recommend choosing the other thing!”
Interesting, are there examples of people feeling positive-tribal-emotions to “go insane” in the abstract?
I suspect in practice it looks more like social pressure to be sleep-deprived, social pressure to repeat what the Glorious Leader says without question, pressure to ignore widely held taboos, pressure to sacrifice the self, etc.
Some years ago, I had a friend who told me she was still anorexic even though the reason she originally acquired anorexia no longer applies[1].
I responded “Have you considered not being anorexic?” She thought about it and replied something like “No, actually.”
Two weeks later she thanked me for helping to cure her anorexia.
This is the type of advice that I expect to be profoundly unhelpful to >95% of people in that position (and indeed is rightfully lampooned approximately everywhere). Yet it was the exact thing this specific person needed to hear, and hopefully “you can just decide to stay sane” is the exact thing some small fraction of people reading your post needed to hear as well.
(censoring the exact reason)
Someone mentioned “mass hysteria” above. I think there are cases where, surrounded by a certain culture or context, people feel positive-tribal-emotions about going insane. If that’s true, it seems perhaps quite helpful—to some particular people, in some particular context—for a Big Tribal Leader (or a friend!) to say, “I strongly recommend not going insane! To the extent that this seems interpretable as a choice, I strongly recommend choosing the other thing!”
Interesting, are there examples of people feeling positive-tribal-emotions to “go insane” in the abstract?
I suspect in practice it looks more like social pressure to be sleep-deprived, social pressure to repeat what the Glorious Leader says without question, pressure to ignore widely held taboos, pressure to sacrifice the self, etc.