GENIUS

Genius is rare. It is also amazing and fascinating to normal folk like me. I don't know a genius but I wish I did.

The old adage about genius being close to madness bears some truth, I suppose. Most of us have seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind" about John Nash who was a math and economics genius but suffered from schizophrenia and led a life full of hallucinations and delusions. It seems to me it would be fun to know a guy like that.

One of the greats of the art world, Vincent Van Gogh, would surely be considered a genius. He was a manic depressive and cut off his own ear, drank turpentine and ate paint. He finally committed suicide. He was definitely a wild man but I think he would have been fun to party with.

One of my favorite authors, Edgar Allen Poe, was probably bipolar. He was certainly an alcoholic and claimed he was tortured throughout his life by thoughts of suicide. How or why he died is unknown. Poe once wrote, "Men have called me mad; but the question is not settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence..." For me, the question is settled.