The Day the World Danced Itself to Death.

Strasbourg, 1518; A woman stepped into the street and began to dance - not for joy, not for spectacle - it was divergent. A feverish, involuntary rhythm, her limbs moving with the mechanical certainty of a marionette cut loose. Then another joins her. And another. Within weeks, hundreds are caught in the grip of an unseen force, their bodies betraying them as they writhe through exhaustion, injury, and in some cases, death.

The authorities, in their staggering acumen, decide that the only cure for this unsolicited endurance contest is more of it. They hire musicians, clear space in halls, and insist that if people just dance hard enough, the madness will burn itself out. One wonders if they would have doused a fire in gasoline, just to see what happened next.

Theories abound - ergot poisoning from moldy rye, mass hysteria, some cruel cosmic joke. But at its core, the Dancing Plague is a grim testament to human unpredictability. Fear, anxiety, the grinding weight of existence - all of it can erupt in ways that defy logic. Sometimes the mind simply rebels, and the body follows.

This is history’s way of reminding us that we are not rational beings. We like to think we command ourselves, but given the right conditions, we are one step away from spiraling into the absurd. The only real lesson? Madness is never as far away as we’d like to believe. And if you must succumb, at least try to keep the rhythm.