Mania

Say whatever you want about unrequited love, but nothing loves me as much as mania does. Nobody wants me to go further down the rabbit hole further than the chemically altered state of mania. Oh, you think you’re invincible. Cool, That’s just the appetizer. The whole menu gets you superpowers.

I always compare infatuation to mania. The difference is the obsession with a person over an idea. An idea, though it has a breaking point. An end point. You can take an idea to its foregone conclusion. A person, well, you’ll never fully grasp a human. Mania- its safety is in its unrelenting quest to love you back with as much passion as you show it. And the superpower is that it will always show back up when you least expect it.

People- they’re ephemeral. Picking leaves if they love you or love you not. But mania, it always comes back with a vengeance to light up my life with the idea that its presence has. Oh, you thought these two disparate theories had nothing to do with each other. You just wait.

At some point, we all have an episode of mania that takes us years to unwind from. It’s just infatuation. A powerful chemical cocktail that leaves you sputtering and wondering if any of what you felt was real or a projection or a fantasy.

We search for meaning in our chemically altered state. Maybe we find it in religion, in art, in relationships. The fate of the human is to be on a never ending quest-but to enjoy the ride.

 

Jenny Allon: “This is my story of mania, hoping to explain a phenomenon not well understood by comparing it to common human experiences.”