If, as one philosopher observed, incorrigibility is the mark of reason, then the mark of incorrigibility is the idea of sanity. We are not surprised that the word “mental” and the word “health” appear in the same phrases, such as “steak” and “french fries,” or “whether you like it” or “whether you don’t like it.” One might think that the main subject of these statements was reason. However, most of those who do it do not talk about the mind as knowledge. They do not know how many legs it has, and they cannot tell whether it is animal, plant, or mineral. Perhaps that is why we stopped talking about the mind and started talking about mental health, that is, about diseases of a being that we do not really know what it is.
Talking about what you don’t know is not in itself a sign of mental illness. Many people constantly talk about their knees and also don’t know how they roll. However, talking about the patella is a general rule of thumb to show others that a particular appendage has gone awry; Talking about a bad kneecap can sometimes be a sign of mental health. Talking about mental matters is another thing. Whereas anyone who speaks from his knee is speaking only about a part of himself, anyone who speaks from his mind, even if he does not also know what he is talking about, believes he is speaking about all of himself.
Talking about one’s mind is a form of unsolicited autobiography. There is no animal with a mind that does not feel a desire to do so. The result is the idea that because we have a mind, we should take care of our mental health. However, we only gain this idea because we are encouraged to talk spontaneously about ourselves as a whole rather than answering questions about our parts. Talking about the mind will at first seem no different from other meritorious professions, such as those who make statements about their knees; But since talking about the mind is talking entirely about ourselves, in talking about mental health we acknowledge the very possibility of being quite ill. That’s why there’s always a distinct tone of endangered animal to anyone who talks about their mental health.
Conversations about mental health belong to the big family of conversations about things at risk. People who talk about vulnerable things have only learned to talk this way because they have been thinking about the health of their minds for a long time. They are accustomed to the idea that they consist of a mind threatened by many disorders; We believe that the world may be your mind; They long for someone to reassure them that there are underlying reasons why the world doesn’t always do their bidding. Comfort professionals come and guarantee it. No wonder, they declare, because everything in this world is a mental thing; They agreed to meet again the following Wednesday.
