According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word mad means "mentally ill" or "insane." With that said, observe the following excerpt from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:"In that direction," the Cat said, waiving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: their both mad." "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat, "we're all mad here."
And then the visually faded kitty proclaims that even Alice is mad...so I wonder, are we all a little bit mad? I have certainly had my moments of utter madness, paranoid halucinations notifying me that the world truly did revolve around me, or jealousy birthed from extreme insecurity, forcing my moves like a hand upon a chess table. Obsessions, compulsions, obsessions, compulsions, ticking like a clock in my cerebrum, alarming and admonishing, the hand transplanting my form to yet another white square, even more vulnerable than before.
So this Mad Hatter...was he mad or normal? Later in Carroll's novel, the hatter is charged with stealing the Queen's tarts. While on trial, the King scolds, "Take off your hat," and to this, the hatter responds, "It isn't mine...I keep them to sell...I've none of my own. I'm a hatter." Pretty clever wit, I do declare! I think you have to be a genius to come up with a retort such as that! Upon further reading, I resolve that either my friend the hatter is a genius, or else, a requirement of madness is the possession of elements of brilliance, combined with ironic drollery.
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