I believe now will be a very proper time to go insane.

One has to choose such things with care, of course, because it doesn't help one's reputation to become a raving lunatic at any inopportune moment. Madness must be selected with care, in order to give it its full distinction, and to add color and quality. If properly cultivated, a good healthy insanity can remain with you for a long and happy life.

Now is a good time. Twenty one is a very good age for it. I don't think I was nearly as prepared at age twenty, and even less so at nineteen. At eighteen I was completely unsuited. Any time before then is much too young to be really properly crazy, and after twenty one you enter the prime years for it.

I'm in a good situation for mental collapse as well... I've been laid off and am far enough away from it to be in no danger of having an episode at work, which would have been entertaining but dangerous should they have forced me to wear a helmet every day after that. It's also the holiday season, which has a magnificent history of cultivating crackpots. Hell, Van Gough's infamous ear episode came around Christmastime (unless I've been grossly misinformed, which is possible considering how much grossness I tend to read) and I think the world is ready for more of the bizarre.