Finding a Balance

When I was in junior high my mom's college friend, Patrick**, came to our house to visit. I thought he was a little odd, constantly laughing at his own jokes and quietly talking to himself. Despite his quirkiness he was an absolute genius. He could figure out any type of math problem in a minute or less and knew facts about anything you could think of, like the population of New York City in 1937. After Patrick left our house my mom shared with me that Patrick had always had a hard time in life, mainly because when he was growing up he had a hard time relating to other kids because he was so smart. Years later my mom told me that Patrick had checked himself into a psychiatric hospital for mental evaluation. Patrick had apparently been dealing with issues for a while and had no one he could really relate to, this had led him to become emotionally unbalanced.

Patrick's story reminded me of the story The Harmony of the Spheres by Salman Rushdie. The main character, Eliot Crane, struggles between balancing real life and his “brainstorms,” also known as schizophrenia. The story is told through the eyes of Crane’s friend, Khan, and shows the descent into Crane’s madness. Crane is a extremely intelligent person, being a published author on the topic of occultist groups in Europe. Crane for a period of time is able to adhere to social norms but on the inside he hears sounds and voices.

Khan understands that Eliot has occasional breakdowns but does not understand his true insanity until Eliot takes his own life. Khan is able to go through Eliot’s belongings and finds notebooks filled with rants about the world. I think Crane had no one he could relate to or truly talk to so he constantly turns to himself to be his own listener.

I think both Eliot and Patrick are extremely similar in the sense that they both were isolated from the outside world. Both were extremely gifted when it came to knowledge but unfortunately neither were able to find an appropriate balance between self and society. I think sometimes when someone is incredibly smart or gifted it makes it harder for them to relate to people that are not as knowledgeable as they are. I think feeling like you are unable to relate to other people around you would make most anyone go insane.

**Name has been changed to not reveal identity.