Wake Up! And Tell Another Story

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.

Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
[laughs maniacally; starts to disappear]

Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.

~Alice In Wonderland (1951)

What is madness? Is it simply another view of reality that differs from most? Is it that the mad see what most of us don’t? If so, then are most of us mad because we don’t see what those we classify as mad, see? We tend to call those who can’t cope in our shared reality (read: society) mad, but who’s to say that our shared reality isn’t some mad vision? Perhaps it is. Maybe those who can’t cope are made mad by this shared vision.

In the latest Alice in Wonderland movie, “Alice”, we see why the Mad Hatter may be mad. His world was destroyed in an instant. His perpetual tea party was a way of keeping some part of that lost world intact. When Alice arrives back in Wonderland after thirteen years, his tea party has deteriorated. His illusion is faltering. Is our illusion, our shared reality, faltering, too? It seems what once seemed to work, no longer does. The new Alice movie talks about making our own choices and not choosing what is dictated to us by society. Alice is more awake now, for this dream is no longer a dream and because she is awake she can direct the story as she wishes.

Perhaps we all need to wake up and realize we can tell another story. The illusion need not decay into a nightmare. We can live our dream and change our story if we don’t like what we are living right now. It’s still just a story we tell, but it can be a conscious one.

Do you like the story you’re living? If not, what story would you like to tell instead?