It's All About Perspective
There is a line between sanity and madness. A line with an in-built perception filter. You can never see for yourself when you've crossed it, or how close to the edge you are. Are you straddling it, a foot on either side? Are your thoughts a crystalline latticework of logic, or are you so twisted, distorted and bound that it doesn't matter anymore? The only reliable method you have of judging your own state of mind is to observe how others react to you.
Sanity and madness are like a layered liqueur. When the glass is shaken around (provided it's covered, obviously), everything chaotic and moving, things happening so fast you don't know which way is up, the layers mix together, creating shifting clouds of smoggy grey. Then , when you leave the glass alone for awhile, perfectly still, everything settles, the alcohol layers itself according to density and the colours separate, everything is clear. Until the ground crumbles beneath your feet, the world shakes around you, and you're falling again.
Insanity. Like love, it's blind. And blinding. Blinkered, you go through life, certain that what you're doing is right, suppressing every stray thought you might have to the contrary. You force yourself to believe that everything will be fine if you keep going. Your mind is sharp, your gaze focused on the desired outcome, and everything you do, everything you say, your every action and breath is directed at overcoming the obstacles between yourself and your desire. You blind yourself to the warning signs - the slightly off comments, the strange readings, the eerie pauses, blank expressions. You shelter yourself, won't let yourself see. You thrust it all aside, and focus on the happy ending. You're delusional. There are no happy endings.
Sanity - hope, love, faith, kindness. Insanity - selfish, hating, uncaring, empty. A daddy 'playing' with his little girl for no good reason other than to get a sense of power, because he feels powerless, and doesn't care what it does to her. A man killing another because he looked at his girlfriend the wrong way, so of course he deserved to die, left bleeding in the snow, a festive red against the white. People killing others and stripping the flesh from their bones, gutting and dismembering; cooking, carving and consuming, because it was a tradition. Because it was fun. Because it didn't matter to them who their meals were and what they were leaving behind. Madness.
The only difference between madness and sanity is perspective, one's "point of view", the choice of a context for opinions, beliefs and experiences. You simply cannot know another's thoughts, another's reasoning, another's feelings. You can never completely know another's mind, or be placed in exactly the same situation as someone else. A person who, observing from the outside, considers an action to be mad, the height of stupidity and illogic, might consider that same action completely sensible if he or she was placed in that position, was forced to take action, privy to all of the unseen reasoning and logic behind it. Or he or she might not. It's all about perspective.
A/N:
Each paragraph contains the thoughts of a different character.
Based on my view of each member of Torchwood Three and my own musings (god that's a pretentious word. Hey so's that one! Pretentious, ooh la la) which is why they're probably a bit jumbled/confused. I am confused. Baffled. Stumped. Walking that thin little line . . .
If you can guess who's who, then kudos to you! The GSD (Global Standard Deity . . . I'm a Jasper Fforde groupie) knows its probably more due to your intelligence rather than my characterisations.
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