Armchair Philosophy Corner
When people become mentally unstable, why is it never in a good way? For example: As an attorney, I see all sorts of incidents when a spouse becomes deranged in some fashion, and it always manifests itself in a negative way: abuse, infidelity, neglect. Why doesn't a spouse ever "lose it" in a good way. Why, for instance, doesn't a wife go off the deep-end by cooking great meals, cleaning the house, massaging her husband's feet, fetching beers, bringing a chamber pot to relieve himself so he doesn't have to leave the room while watching re-runs of The Sopranos . . . all to the point of lunacy? Why is the nutty turn always in a nasty direction?
Of course, some nutty turns can be somewhat neutral (e.g., the depressive husband who locks himself in the bedroom and won't come out), but I've never heard of a good nutty turn, and I'm curious why. Maybe we don't see the good nuts because nobody complains about them. Or maybe mental instability is inherently selfish somehow. If so, is there some moral culpability associated with mental instability? That seems awfully harsh and that's not my position, but it makes me wonder.
