Monasteries as VCs for neurotic crazies
If you’re insane in a way where you need people to laugh at your jokes (so that you feel accepted), you end up a comedian. If you’re crazy in a way where you need a copious amounts of adrenaline in order to feel anything, you end up in extreme sports. If you’re a schizo who can spot a pattern in random noise, etc, then maybe your home is the monastery.
So the way out of the insanity isn’t to fight it, but to find people who accept you either in spite of (or because of) your craziness. You’re not “bad”, you just need to be in an environment where your unique neurotic mind’s inventive conclusions can be harvested for the greater good.
We naturally think of monasteries as being “good” and “generous” for helping the poor, downtrodden, and the crazy. However, what if monasteries are “selfish”, shrewd, and clever for seeking out high variance intellectual talent. Just like a VC, a monastery doesn’t need to hit a home run with every investment. Chances are, the top investment will pay off more than the rest of the others combined. What you care about isn’t the level of crazy, but the big-if-trueness of the claims.
I’ve been running into increasing numbers of crazy people and I’m starting to think that I’m not some unique genius who’s able to avoid ending up there myself. I can see how they ended up where they did. I can inhabit their world view and look around as if I was them. The thing is these people can be quite rational, and hold down demanding jobs.
Maybe I’m wrong and we don’t want to encourage the crazy. But maybe the crazies just need a proper environment for them to thrive—big if true. If you’re willing to live a monastic life, one some level you’re proving how committed you are, and you’re also most likely to benefit from the environment.