The Riddle and the Madness

The riddle and the madness

 

From Shaman’s Rock

By Jim Poling Sr.

 

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

 

That’s the question the Mad Hatter asks Alice in Lewis Carroll’s fantasy Alice in Wonderland.

 

Alice ponders the question but does not have the answer.

 

“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter prods.

 

“No, I give up,” Alice replies. “What’s the answer?”

 

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” says the Mad Hatter.

 

That scene from the Hatter’s tea party is today’s reality. Our world has become a whacko tea party with characters just as nutty as the Hatter, the March Hare and the Cheshire cat. 

Too many people don’t have the slightest idea of how to conduct themselves during this awful Covid pandemic. We are living in a world of Mad Hatter mania with crazy behaviour increasing everywhere.

Confrontations over wearing protective masks have become numerous and ugly. They have led to racist rants and violent scenes resulting in injuries and deaths.

Last week’s police shootings of disturbed elderly men here in Haliburton County and outside Detroit, Michigan are examples. Both began with arguments about wearing masks.

 

There is Mad Hatter-style frenzy on the roads and highways. The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) says 59 per cent of Canadians polled reported having seen an increase in dangerous driving since the Covid crisis began.

 

Speeding topped the list of observed bad driving behaviours. Forty-four percent of those polled by CAA said they saw drivers speeding in the last few months.

 

Speeding has not been in the top five of CAA’s observed unsafe driving behaviours since 2013.

 

Aggressive behaviour is being seen more often while shopping. Racist rants are being reported more frequently.

 

Clerks have lost some of their previous pleasantness, and you can’t blame them. Despite precautions, they are exposing themselves every day to customers who might be carrying the virus.

 

Customers also have become more unpleasant. A Home Hardware in Vancouver has seen enough bad customer behaviour to post a sign telling customers that disrespecting and abusing staff is unacceptable.

 

The sign reads:

 

“If you think you will be unable to behave in a calm, respectful manner and accept our current situation with empathy and an expectation of compromise, we kindly ask you to shop elsewhere.” 

 

Businesses, on top of suffering huge financial losses, are seeing an increase in crime. Commercial break-ins in Vancouver between March 18 and April 15 were up 147 per cent compared with the same period last year. Residential break and enters were up 51 per cent.

 

Police forces in Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton, and York Region also are reporting increases in business break-ins

 

There are various theories about why folks go bonkers during stressful times. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian author whose novels often delved into madness, believed that madness is a manifestation of moral or spiritual crisis.

 

I believe our current craziness comes from the many stresses of modern living finally reaching the boiling point. We live with worries about the environment, changing climate, overpopulation, out-of-control drug addiction and an unstable economic situation. Then, along comes Covid-19.

 

Social media is aiding the madness. Anyone can pull out a smartphone and rant and rave and spew misinformation and other nonsense to an audience of millions.

 

Atop all that is a disheartening lack of strong leadership. Here in Canada, government responses seem to be to keep writing cheques. That’s helpful in some ways but it would be nice to have regular assessments of the impact on the national debt and how it will get paid down. Therein lies another potential future crisis.

 

What’s happening in the United States, which has Covid-19 problems worse than many banana republics, makes the Mad Hatter’s tea party look calm, reasonable and sane. Watching TV reports of the U.S. governments’ responses to the crisis is like walking through an 1800s madhouse.

 

There are many difficult riddles about how to kill this terrible pandemic, how to open schools safely, how to get economy back on track while keeping people safe. So many riddles and so many leaders who haven’t the slightest idea.

 

Meanwhile, the Mad Hatter’s riddle remains: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

 

The answer is obvious to me: Because Edgar Allan Poe, the American writer of stories dark and macabre, wrote on both.

 

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