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>Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualif

>Surprised nobody has yet mentioned Douglas Adams' "Wonko the Sane," who built an asylum turned inside out to house the whole world. Many comedians would qualify as this as well. I'm also thinking of the Terry Pratchett concept of being "knurd". On the Discworld, the opposite of being drunk isn't being sober - sober is the middle ground on the drunk/sober/knurd scale. To be knurd is to be so completely aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society.

codesnik 7y ago
I only now have realised it's "drunk" spelled backwards. And probably reads the same as "nerd"
- riffraff 7y ago
  the first time I read Terry Pratchett it was in italian, and knurd had not been translated, I suppose the translator didn't get the joke or thought it wasn't fun in italian. Took me a decade or so to finally get it when I re-encountered it in english :)
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    Since I'm sure I'm not the only one with the desire to look that up, "drunk/knurd" is apparently "ubriaco/ocairbu" in Italian.
kijin 7y ago
> To be knurd is to be so completely aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society. That sounds like the intense world theory of autism.
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? Right now if I am to do the dishes, I am already aware of thousands other things and concepts and deep truths about reality, and sciences, etc. etc, but I can focus on this one task, it doesn't matter what I am aware of, if I choose to do it I can do it. How would being aware of more things put a dent in that? If so, then call it for what it is (perhaps "attention deficit disorder"?), but it has nothing to do with the amount of awareness.
- arvinsim 7y ago
  > Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? > Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film.
  - checktheorder 7y ago
    >This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film. In that Zack Snyder was fundamentally incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, and decided to metaphorically barf up every half-baked idea simultaneously, making for an ungodly confusing incompetent mess of a film?
- zerogvt 7y ago
  First of all, kudos for your nickname. A lot of what makes the society ticks -especially any society deeply rooted in materialism like ours today- is very hard to justify even when you are in a just-sane state of mind. See "bullshit jobs" for a longer treatise of that. Yes, you can focus better on the things you wanted to focus on but you would probably find it very hard to convince yourself to focus doing the work you currently do as hypersanity would probably have its importance stripped away.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    So if I am starving, have no money for my interests, and yet have ambitions - and cannot find a fully fullfilling job, are you saying that I will not be able to go to a "bullshit job", because I will be under the impression that sitting at home meditating or looking at trees is more important than getting food through work? That to me sounds like laziness or victim complex, or a couple of other things, but really not something I would call "sanity".
    - serpix 7y ago
      Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus they do not suffer.

codesnik 7y ago

I only now have realised it's "drunk" spelled backwards. And probably reads the same as "nerd"

riffraff 7y ago
the first time I read Terry Pratchett it was in italian, and knurd had not been translated, I suppose the translator didn't get the joke or thought it wasn't fun in italian. Took me a decade or so to finally get it when I re-encountered it in english :)
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Since I'm sure I'm not the only one with the desire to look that up, "drunk/knurd" is apparently "ubriaco/ocairbu" in Italian.

kijin 7y ago

> To be knurd is to be so completely aware of everything that one can't really function in normal society. That sounds like the intense world theory of autism.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? Right now if I am to do the dishes, I am already aware of thousands other things and concepts and deep truths about reality, and sciences, etc. etc, but I can focus on this one task, it doesn't matter what I am aware of, if I choose to do it I can do it. How would being aware of more things put a dent in that? If so, then call it for what it is (perhaps "attention deficit disorder"?), but it has nothing to do with the amount of awareness.

arvinsim 7y ago
> Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? > Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film. In that Zack Snyder was fundamentally incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, and decided to metaphorically barf up every half-baked idea simultaneously, making for an ungodly confusing incompetent mess of a film?
zerogvt 7y ago
First of all, kudos for your nickname. A lot of what makes the society ticks -especially any society deeply rooted in materialism like ours today- is very hard to justify even when you are in a just-sane state of mind. See "bullshit jobs" for a longer treatise of that. Yes, you can focus better on the things you wanted to focus on but you would probably find it very hard to convince yourself to focus doing the work you currently do as hypersanity would probably have its importance stripped away.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  So if I am starving, have no money for my interests, and yet have ambitions - and cannot find a fully fullfilling job, are you saying that I will not be able to go to a "bullshit job", because I will be under the impression that sitting at home meditating or looking at trees is more important than getting food through work? That to me sounds like laziness or victim complex, or a couple of other things, but really not something I would call "sanity".
  - serpix 7y ago
    Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus they do not suffer.