An attempt to convince myself, and a slap on great scholars' face

From Man of La Mancha, a musical. Cervantes' line, speaking to his fellow prisoner who charged him as a bad poet, and idealist, and an honest man. In his defence, he called on all prisoners to put on stage his last work "Don Quixote". The deal: if the play pleased the prisoners, they had to let him keep his play. During intermission, the prisoner asked why "you poet always so facinated with mad man, and never see things as it is." He replied--

I have lived nearly fifty years and I have seen life as it is.
Pain, misery, hunger. . . cruelty beyond belief.
I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans of bundles of filth on the streets.
I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle . . .
or die more slowly under the lash in Africa.
I have held them in my arms at the final moment.
These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing.
No glory, no gallant last words . . . only their eyes filled with confusion,
whimpering the question: "Why?"
I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?
Perhaps to be too practical is madness.
To surrender dreams- this may be madness.
To seek treasure where there is only trash.
Too much sanity may be madness.
And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.