The Demons of the Asylum

True asylums have no iron bars or padded walls. The most perfect asylums are those invisible, colossal complexes whose doors are wide open, yet no one dares to step outside. In this open-air asylum we call the modern world, madness is equated with nonconformity. Yet the true madness is blindly keeping pace with a system in which everyone decays to the same rhythm.

The demons of this asylum are not horned or frightening like those of legend; on the contrary, they appear utterly respectable. They often offer reasonable advice, whispering that you should "adapt," "think realistically," and extinguish that dangerous fire quietly burning within you. Their greatest weapon is ordinariness. They are so terrified of a person confronting their own darkness that they dress your existential anguish as "illness" and try to keep you in bright, shallow, safe waters.

But the revolution a person ignites inward catches fire precisely when you look these demons in the eye. When you begin to descend into the corridors of your own mind, to listen to that uncanny silence, you realize: the demons of the asylum feed most on unwritten poems, unscreamed cries, and ink never spilled onto paper. Every moment you stay silent, conform, or deny yourself, you make them a little larger.

This is why writing, taking refuge in words, is not merely an aesthetic act; it is an honorable struggle for survival against the demons of this colossal asylum. The only way to silence the demons is to do what they fear most: embrace your own madness and pour that ember, without hesitation, onto the page.