The ramblings of mad men

We, as humans, are so obsessed with reason, so caught up in ensuring that pattern triumphs over chaos that we often forget to appreciate the beauty of chaos, of utter and sheer madness.

Catcher in the Rye is one of the most censored and challenged books in the world. The book has almost no violence and little nudity. The book is not even an adult book. There is only one reason for the censorship and the challenges that the book has faced — the madness. JD Sallinger manages to capture the ravings of a lunatic and many theorise that Holden Caulfield was talking to a psychiatrist in his memoirs. By speaking the tones of a madman, Sallinger somehow inspired many assassination attempts on prominent individuals, including former American president Ronald Reagan. Indeed, it was the book that John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, mentioned in his statement after murdering Lennon. Madness, it seems, can change the world.

Possibly, the most intelligent man in history, Nikola Tesla, was as loony as they come. The inventor of the radio, the radar, the alternating current, the generator, wireless technology, remote energy transfer and hydroelectric power generation amongst others, also had a documented hatred for circles — which also made him hate fat people — and was known to talk to pigeons. Easily, the greatest mind of our times, one which developed inventions that can still not be replicated and is the only one to have ever fully understood the Unified Field Theory was plagued by the demons of madness. He was exiled from New York for causing an earthquake, after which he promptly played his part in the Tsar Bomba, the largest artificial explosion, 1,000 times the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear explosions. Tesla, the archetypical mad scientist, is often dubbed as the inventor of the 21st century.

There seems to be a very thin line between sheer genius and utter madness; the two even seem to coincide more often than not. The language of madness is understood by all madmen, and madness, thy name is you. Perhaps, we should listen more closely to our politicians.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2014.