Genuis/Nuts

                To quote the famous ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.” I think Aristotle got it right on this one. Most of the great minds that have ever existed have been a tad off their rocker. Maybe its that they use more of their brains than the rest of us, and we mere non-geniuses don’t have the means to comprehend their humor. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt that being a genius has its down-falls.

                When I was in high school, there was a Japanese student by the name of “Aki” that was so socially awkward that hardly anyone spoke to him. He ran from class to class giving people “peace” signs with his calculator in-hand, and usually ate lunch in one of the physics teacher’s rooms discussing who knows what (He actually won homecoming king one year, but we won’t get into that...). It later came to my knowledge by means of my Honors Physics teacher (who knows how I made it into that class!) that Aki was actually some-what of a genius. All those lunch periods when I assumed Aki was doing unassigned calculus problems for fun, he was actually the one doing the teaching to the teachers! It turns out Aki was a mathematical genius who could ramble off equations, recite pi out the um-teeth digit and attended college courses at night. He shared his knowledge with other teachers during our lunch hour and what as silent hero amongst the faculty. He ended up graduating a year earlier than the rest of us, and suddenly he was the one laughing….

                For some reason, harmony cannot always exist the way we want it to. Maybe it’s God or whoever’s way of balancing out the universe; like he/she doesn’t want to put all his/her apples in one basket or something. You can’t be smart AND sane, you have to pick one! In one of Salman Rushdie’s short stories called “The Harmony of the Spheres” we examine the inner-turmoil of Eliot Crane, a genius-gone-mad with schizophrenia who ends up taking his own life, along with pieces of those involved in his. His wife Lucy and best friend/alien-enemy Khan try to lead him back into sanity, but nothing seems to work and he becomes his own worst enemy, drowning in the depths of his thoughts.

                It is my belief that the contributing causes to Eliot’s demise involved his lack of control over his life. We all feel a little crazy sometimes; breakups, school and the never ending drama of our friends can be a little much at times, but usually we have a handle on things. For the Eliot’s of the world though, they have much more going on in their heads than we could ever imagine, and it is simply too much to bare. Professor Burton brought up the example of Robin Williams in class today, who borders on the brink of madness with his scatter-brained thoughts and extravagent behavior but just baaaaarely manages to pass the sanity test.

    In “The Harmony of the Spheres” Eliot’s schizophrenia leads him to experience mental hallucinations where he actually believes that his friends and family are outer-world Martians. He puts himself in danger a number of times, including the incident where he drove the wrong way on the freeway blindfolded. Who knows whether it was his illness or not, but he also convinces himself that cheating on his wife with his best friend’s wife is a good idea. The saddest outcome of this illness though is the fact that he took his own life, using the same gun that his father used to do the same with. The one thing Eliot uses to channel his inner-rage though is writing. Desks and binders filled with his writings provided a window into his mind for Lucy and Khan, and we see that it was his way of releasing the demons within him. Unfortunately for Eliot though, writing was not enough.

Writing has always proved to be therapeutic for me because the simple act of getting it out of your mind and onto paper feels like lifting the flood gates and letting all your problems be released. This trend seems to be popular in the music industry as well. I can’t help but find it ironic that one of my favorite musicians who also committed suicide in a fit of depression was named Eliot. The greatest minds always seems to be the most troubled, and it makes me almost thankful that I am an average B student living a normal life, not an A genius with no friends and a big bag of marbles upstairs.