So I'm trying to gain Madness because I really need to be able to process Nocxium, but I'm sitting on an Atropos planet, wearing the Crown of the Idiot, and eating Bloody Waffles whenever the Full Belly effect fades, but the gain is... so... slow. Two questions:

How do I speed this up? I was gonna write and read books, but I don't have much Leather. I have a couple paintings, but they barely do anything except hurt me. Not sure what else to do to get any kind of decent Madness gain.

Just how much is 19 Protheon holding me back? I have no idea what the scale of its effect is, so I'm not sure if this is a minor hindrance or a big setback. If it's major, should I sell some of it down? It's been hard to find and almost totally random.

Any other practical tips would also help. I was looking at Telk Death Sticks, but that'd get expensive FAST. Similar for opening Mysterious Trash Bags and autopsying the results. I'm just... I can't seem to break 1k Madness and it's bugging me.