the fine red line

It is very commonly found that those who have intelligence that is above that of the average person tend to experience some form of mental or emotional instability.... perhaps even bordering on insanity occasionally. Is insanity responsible for their genius or is the culprit of their mental anguish in fact this extreme intelligence?Take for example, John Nash Jr., he was plagued with paranoid schizophrenia for most of his life. He was a visionary who saw things from a completely different perspective... that's what genius is essentially about-the ability to see and appreciate what 90% of the population doesn't.His insight into the Theory of Numbers was unparalleled and his idea of the Game Theory earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics. All this however came at a price- and that was this mental disease.
Would he still be a gifted mathematician if he were of sound mind?
Would his mental faculties have been preserved had he been of moderate intelligence?
That example is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Others with intelligence beyond the ordinary man may display various idiosyncrasies, and people who don't understand them and cannot appreciate their insights label these uniques as crazy freaks. Its human nature- we condemn that which we cannot understand, it’s the only way we know how to deal with it!
And what is crazy anyway? Excluding organic mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression, anything anyone does that strays away from the norm is categorized as crazy....freakish ..... weirdo...... I think you get the picture. And who is it that says what is and isn't the norm? That would be the society in general. Over the thousands of years of human mental evolution, we have come up with a fixed set of rules- the right way to think, the right way to dress, the right way to walk and talk, the right way to be!!!
Don't get me wrong, yes there are fundamental human principles that we have to abide by to avoid total societal chaos and destruction (then again in the after thought, despite all these rules,could we find in a more abysmal state than we already are in????)Per usual I digress.... so as I was saying, the moment we challenge the polyclonal lifestyle that everyone is snuggled in, all comfortably numb, we would be the "crazy freak!!" or any
smart-ass nicknames they can come up with.
Folks like John Nash Jr, Einstein, Socrates, Van Gogh etc were brave and they dared to be different. They're kind of different was not the attention seeking,-look at me- sort of different, but it was a difference that gave birth to amazing ideas, that made man question their conscience (and for that Socrates was condemned to death), and showed us that art not necessarily had to be confined to specific parameters..... Van Gogh painted 'outside the lines'.Maybe, we need to stand on the sidelines from time to time, take a look from a different angle, only then will we be able to see the big picture.
On a slightly different note- perhaps those with that heightened sense of insight and intellect have variations in their neuroanatomy and physiology. Maybe there are extra/deficient chemical reactions that manifest as genius at one end and as mental lability on the other.?
Or alternatively, these people maximize their brain power the best they can, tipping the balance, thus resulting in a colourful array of eccentricities which at its worst would be a complete downward spiral into madness. Is it one or the other or a little bit of both?
I'd give anything to see what someone like Einstein thought.... how he thought, how he saw the world and science..... to experience a moment of divine inspiration, however fleeting it might be. Now that would be something.
As naive as this might sound, I think all of us have a dormant potential to be genius-like. They say solitude is the school of genius and I couldn’t agree more because I think its only that way that we will actually hear ourselves think and only then will the creative force within us be unleashed. I think, given the right stimuli, encouragement and attitude, who knows, maybe our minds might reach unbelievable altitudes. The only thing you might be concerned about is not crossing that fine red line so far that you lose sight of it altogether.