Method in madness

Often there's a method in madness. You may think that what someone does is weird without knowing why they do it, but they have a reason.

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English Phrase: (a) method in (one’s) madness

We all do things we think are perfectly normal, but others may think they are crazy.

When this happens, we can say there is a method in our madness.


It means that the somewhat insane thing that we are doing has a purpose or meaning.


I remember when I was younger, I noticed my mother hanging some fresh flowers upside down.

I couldn’t understand why she was doing that.

Flowers grew with the flowers pointing up, and people usually cut them and put the stems in a vase with the flowers pointing up.

My mother was hanging her flowers upside down.

She told me there was a method in her madness.

Drying the flowers upside down would help preserve the colours, and once dried, they would last the entire Canadian winter.

I live in Japan now, and believe me, the Japanese do a lot of crazy things, but there is often a method in their madness.

My advice to you is to keep an open mind and remember that there is often a method in someone’s perceived madness.

Or they could always really be mad – it depends on the person – case by case, as the Japanese like to say.


This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).  

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 75.  

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



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