Foreword: not to unsettle anyone, but think about the significance of the role imagination
plays in insanity. “Imagination” is not only good for fiction and escapism.
How do you like the title? But before I touch on any dictionary definition of the word
“insanity” and proceed to discuss how I personally “take” it based on my own reasoning
related to the same, or relate it to the practice of translation, let me mention a quote from the
ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu:
“A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. A good artist lets their
intuition take them wherever it wants to.”
Lao Tzu may have been a wise man for his day but I am hesitant to agree with this
philosophy so readily. I mean, it’s perfectly understandable that people often feel a need
(conscious or otherwise) to be convinced that someone is acting objectively, with a goal or
vision worth the name in mind, if they are to agree that they have any reason to be confident
in them – this article is a marketing article related to promoting a business (my business), and
I say that to say that such a scenario is surely especially likely when it comes to business and
the question of whether the one doing the work really is as good as they say they are in
conjunction with the fact that someone would eventually be expected to part with their money
for this person’s services should such services actually occur. I’m not an expert on Lao Tzu
by any means, but when I look at the quote above, if a traveller is not intent on arriving at
their destination, to me that sort of suggests that they were borderline reluctant to go on the
journey in the first place, or don’t actually have any sound ideas about what to expect of the
destination – unless the expression “not intent on arriving” is a bad translation when
“indifferent as to when they arrive” would be more appropriate (and no, I don’t speak
Chinese, and especially not Classical Chinese). But the quote also says “A good artist lets
their intuition take them wherever it wants to.” Now, I can admit that I can be prone to letting
my imagination run wild for the sake of contentment, sometimes allowing for the inclusion of
surreal things that would never happen in real life. (I guess I was especially prone to this as a
child. What about you? In fact, if one is hapless enough, their imagination may be the only
thing they can turn to!) But these days, now that I have fully grown up and have a more
determinedly perceptive approach to problems and situations in general, I am more on my
guard against possibly pernicious consequences of letting my imagination take over purely
for the sake of my own contentment (which, in all humility, is no more important than anyone
else’s) and it only stops when I become bored (usually as a result of something else that I find
more interesting). Whatever imagination is good for – and I’m not denying that it is very
good in connection with any number of meaningful respects – I’m also claiming that it is also
capable of misleading and impeding understanding of things in the real world even if it
should be obvious to anyone that they affect you personally. I consider that life without
imagination would not be worth living and that, as such, it really is a boon and a gift.
However, I also gather that it is frequently abused by people when they fantasise about living
in some world without consequence or responsibility – a world where, unlike in reality,
freedom really is free. We should appreciate the wisdom, courage and maturity demonstrated
in the acceptance of responsibility for one’s own imagination and what it leads them to agree
or disagree with, sometimes to the worry or frustration or anger of others and even ourselves.
Now, being wrong doesn’t make you automatically insane – of course it doesn’t – but, in a
way, sound and fair judgement depends on imagination – with one is dealing with weak,
immature or misguided minds in particular, and certainly clinically deranged ones. In short,
whoever you are or think you are, I can’t over-emphasise that imagination is a major
contributor to one’s attitudes, be they good and altruistic or bad and destructive.
That said, people will often be very receptive and sensitive to attitude as far as
communication is concerned, so what of imagination in connection with languages and the
pursuit of translation? Well, when civilisation A encounters civilisation B for the first time
and they speak different languages, originally they may agree to learn each other’s language
purely as a matter of convenience, maybe even survival. But over time individual cultural
aspects will become more apparent in a given language and, well, surely you can at least
begin to see why some people are so staunchly proud/emotionally attached to their own
language. But that’s no reason to forego learning another. That said, it is true that the Bible
says “judge not lest ye be judged” but that doesn’t change the fact that people often feel a
need to judge each other as a basic necessity in response to the ceaseless challenges of life –
not just their own ambitions – but the consequences of this are evidently far from always
favourable. Hence my point that translation is not for fools or the irresponsible.
So what is insanity (at least to me)? It seems to me that a lot of people have pretty set ideas
about it which are limited in scope, without any actual dictionary definition kind of
appreciation of it as a more general concept. In my case, at least, I have always accepted that
insane people just behave so much unlike normal people. Even so, they don’t always fit the
trope of a character prone to laughing manically while clearly being a danger only to
themselves if anyone – no, insane people may well likely engage in grossly antisocial acts,
like the guy who stabbed five random strangers in London not too long ago.
https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/first-picture-man-who-randomly-
19002368 Five random strangers, at least one of whom, for all he knew, might well have
quickly become a good friend of his under different circumstances, and who may have had
roughly the same values, principles, concerns and fears (open or secret, conscious or not) as
he. Anyway, here’s something taken from a dictionary, found on Google. Often semi-
informally used in modern parlance to mean extremely unreasonable or stupid, people who
use it like this tend to give no attention or importance to the actual significance of insanity as
a harmful and unsettling medical condition; to Google, “insane” is defined as “in a state of
mind which prevents normal perception, behaviour, or social interaction; seriously mentally
ill.” It goes on to point out the traits of an insane person, which include confused thinking and
delusions or hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that are not really there) – I say this
because confused thinking and delusions are things that may be evident in poorly done
translation output; wording that is just, in some way, a whole lot more than merely not as
helpful as could be hoped for.
But if you really need more convincing that I, as a professional translator and indeed as a
human being, am sane, let me say these four things, which are ideas that just came to me (no-
one ever shared them with me as I am going to do with you here):
One: At what point does pretending to hate someone actually amount to genuine hatred of
them and qualify as a thing of curse? One for Black Lives Matter, as if smearing Winston
Churchill as a racist actually achieves something. You know, for a long time I have been
willing to assert that love is the only thing that never gets easier the more you do it – maybe,
just maybe, hate is nothing short of the most “important” (for want of a better word) thing
which always gets easier the more you do it. And the Buddha said that hate is self-
destructive; look it up.
Two: Melancholia isn’t just great sadness; it has been classified as a depression serious
enough to constitute a clinical condition. That said, would you say that one afflicted by
melancholia literally does not want to be happy (however nonsensical they may sound at first
glance), maybe due to guilt or humiliation that can never be “more or less” fully done away
with in the space of any kind of singular moment?
Three: I guess many would immediately regard it as convenient and nothing but to always be
able to know in advance exactly what you’re going to end up learning in earnest. But real life
isn’t like that – however smart you may be.
Four: you’ve probably heard of the saying “the things you own end up owning you.” I can see
that that could only happen as a result of letting fate decide what you will look forward to;
and to me, all too often, people delude themselves as to how much they really like something
for no reason other than they happen to be entitled to it! Genuine appreciation of it is
probably inexistent as a result.