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Complex Numbers #1084644 added March 2, 2025 at 10:48am
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Revisited: "Real Men of Genius"
Just digging back to April of 2021 today, a time that is simultaneously far in the past and only four years ago. I did an entry based on a Cracked article: "Real Men of Genius" 
The title, which I didn't explain then, comes from an old (90s-noughties) ad campaign for a product I despise, but whose promotions I found amusing. Yes, ads can be amusing. Maybe once a decade.
The article itself still exists; Cracked seems to have a pretty good archive, which is good, because I haven't been impressed with their latest output.
Me: It's been said that with genius comes a certain level of insanity.
I didn't clarify this then, but I don't really believe what's "been said" in this case. Humans can be weird; weirdness isn't necessarily insanity; and a famous person's weirdness tends to get amplified. The article doesn't mention mental illness; that was all my take, and I probably shouldn't have done it.
That amplification seems to be the case with the first one, about Nabokov. Lots of people have sleep problems. Would his have been well-known if he hadn't been?
As for the next item: George Patton claimed to be the reincarnation of several past soldiers. What I didn't acknowledge then, and probably should have, is that lots of people hold a belief in reincarnation. It's more common in Eastern cultures, but it's hardly unheard-of in the West. So, whether one believes Patton or not, he was hardly alone in his assertions.
Not really anything else to add or subtract, except that I'm pretty sure some of your beliefs, habits, or activities, and mine, would get pegged as weirdness if we were famous. The title of the original article specified "famous smart people with little-known problems," but it's not like you could build an article around unknown people with little-known problems. |
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