Just another Manic Thursday

As kids we all play at being Captain Kirk (well ok Picard nowadays I suppose) or Sinbad or John Wayne (I know he "played" characters, but they all seemed like John Wayne to me). It's accepted as part of growing up to want to be some-one/where/when else. We tend to band together in groups to do it, often with three or four "Captains" / "John Waynes" vieing for center stage granted, but still the resultant chaos is regarded as "normal" play.

Some of us like to carry this forwards into adulthood-- formally (Am Dram, Operetta, other performing arts, fooling about down the pub....) or informally ( as per Walter Mitty).

Some get to do it for a living-- Proper Acting, Rock Gods, Big Brother contestants....

Then there are those who truly believe they are the love-child of ex-King Zog and a Lyon's Corner House "Nippy". You can tell them a mile off. They are the life and soul of their own portable party. Eternally "Up" and more than willing to share their energies with all and sundry. It all starts out very lighthearted and cheerful and they truly become everybody's mate. Then they actually start to let on "who they really are". People start to look at them funny and muttering about having them "put away for their own good".

Like Elwood P Dowd they are often led child-like to the gates of the institution to be made "better". We have to do this, because otherwise they expose themselves to terrible risks, spending cash they don't have on things they don't need, buying endless rounds of drinks for complete strangers and risking being fleeced by any hard hearted opportunist they chance upon.
A month later, drugged to the eyeballs and incoherent they emerge back into the light of day, flat and affectless, suspicious of strangers, and every bit as inhibited as the rest of us.

So which of us is really "better"?