There’s a fine line between madness and genius, Melissa.
Life has taken on an oddly surrealist quality lately. Like the Beatles song Come Together, or a painting by Chagall. The things in my life seem oddly disconnected and unrelated. I feel sure they must have some kind of significance, taken together if not separately, if only I could grasp it. The meaning and the connection are both just out of reach. And everyone else seem to think it means something entirely different– or nothing at all. Perhaps this is what it means to go crazy? To have an alternative interpretation of reality and to feel sure it is a true one.
I was talking to my dad the other day and he pointed out that a mark of genius seems to be the inability to keep your life together. Like the genius-I.Q. physics PhD. students we all know who are oblivious to everything around them, forget to wash their hair, trip over their shoelaces, can’t cook at all, etc. It seems everyone in history who was brilliant at something– composers, scientists, inventors, artists, authors, actresses, whatever– had crappy personal lives. Da Vinci cut off his ear and sent it to a woman he was in love with because he was so distraught over the fact that she wouldn’t have him. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was such a brilliant musician that he could hear all six parts of the harmony in his head; he did all the arrangements for the band’s songs. But he was so depressed that he couldn’t finction most of the time, sometimes couldn’t even tour with the band. He said that once he was about to commit suicide, but he realized that all his life he had heard music in his head constantly; the only thing that stopped him killing himself was that fear and uncertainty about whether, once dead, the music would stop and he would be finally, absolutely alone.
When dad told me this, I said that I have all the hallmarks of a genius, if only I could figure out what I was a genius at! Lol.
Einstein was considered mad. So was Galileo, and Jesus of Nazareth. They were all mad and I am mad and we are all mad together.
February 19th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
wow, that’s a really good post. I get the same feeling sometimes. I like to think it’s the vertigo that follows when you’re moving somewhere in life, and then you stop to look around. But contemplation never solved confusion, so just pick a goal and keep running. A beautiful life well led will create surreal moments.
Sorry, maybe I’m just mad
Peter
February 20th, 2007 at 1:15 am
Da Vinci did that too?!?
I thought only van Gogh was mad enough to do that!
Learn something new everyday, eh?
nooc
February 20th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Ironically, it does rather make sense that higher brain function should result in what we would call ‘madness.’ Most of us use so little of our brains that neurologists have no idea what the psychological outcome will be of those who tap into other parts.
That would also mean that, if you do turn out to be a genius, you’re just a normal one. Not an extrodinary one. My girl, the ordinary genius.
“Also; I can kill you with my brain.”
February 21st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
caesalpinia: you’re right. Contemplation never did solve confusion. Doesn’t stop me trying, naturally! Lol.
nooc: lol so I got the artist wrong. Whoops.
Phil: I can. Kill you with my brain, that is. So don’t cheat. Lol. No, actually sometimes I get the idea that it’s you who can read my mind. And a scary thought it is, too.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Positive_Disintegration
February 21st, 2007 at 8:35 pm
That’s one smart Pollack!
February 24th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Now there’s an interesting gathering/buddy comedy to see: Einstein, Galileo, Jesus, and Mel.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
And Tommy. You can come too.
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