{"id":166,"date":"2006-08-27T13:48:34","date_gmt":"2006-08-27T17:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/2006\/09\/02\/the-madman\/"},"modified":"2006-09-12T21:56:09","modified_gmt":"2006-09-13T01:56:09","slug":"the-madman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/the-madman\/","title":{"rendered":"the madman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(Few have understood the Middle East and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s people like Lebanese-born poet and scholar, Khalil Gibran. In this, my favourite of his smaller works, Gibran explores the concept of cultural integration and social identity, relevant now more than ever in the land he once called home)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chapter One: How I Became a Madman<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me. And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He is a madman.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I looked up to behold him and the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. My soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Thus I became a madman. And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.<\/p>\n<p>But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"The Madman | Khalil Gibran\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.leb.net\/gibran\/works\/madman\/madman.html\">Chapter Two&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Few have understood the Middle East and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s people like Lebanese-born poet and scholar, Khalil Gibran. In this, my favourite of his smaller works, Gibran explores the concept of cultural integration and social identity, relevant now more than ever in the land he once called home) Chapter One: How I Became a Madman You ask [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","category-arts-literature","category-the-middle-east"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>the madman - The Rational Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/freedom24.org\/rationalpost\/the-madman\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"the madman - The Rational Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Few have understood the Middle East and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s people like Lebanese-born poet and scholar, Khalil Gibran. 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