Mental Illness is One Thing, Madness is Another
Stop the Madness
I have many role models, but two of them are of the negative type: people who have made mistakes I want to avoid. The first is James Nasmith, the inventor of the game of basketball; the second is Thomas Jefferson.
The reason I don’t want to be like Nasmith is not because he invented basketball. B’ball is a wonderful sport. I don’t want to be like Nasmith because he exemplifies something I want to avoid. The tendency to become oblivious to madness.
The story goes that Nasmith invented basketball to keep the kids at his Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA busy on rainy days. He had them passing, dribbling, and shooting soccer balls into peach baskets he nailed to the gym walls. Every time someone scored, they had to take a step ladder, climb up, and retrieve the ball before they could resume play.
It took fifteen years before it occurred to anyone to cut a hole in the bottom of the blessed peach baskets. Fifteen years of the madness of setting up a step ladder and climbing the thing before they could go on. That’s the thing I want to avoid about Nasmith and all in kids at the Springfield Y. They couldn’t see what was so bloody obvious.
I’m always asking myself, what are my peach baskets? What are yours? If I see them, you can count on me to…
