Just Another 'Brainstorm'

            Knowledge is power. This simple statement is frequently tossed around and often ignored. For the most part people seem to acquire knowledge only to a point where they may maintain their chosen lifestyle contently. Others lead a life constantly pursuing knowledge. Personally I will probably find myself lumped in with the first group. Knowing that I could spend my whole lifetime studying, and searching for more knowledge and I would fall short of even scratching the surface of the libraries of knowledge on this planet alone. Often great minds come along that seem to have a capacity for the endless stream of knowledge. I’ve always heard that there’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I think being able to control ones pace on the endless path of knowledge is what separates the genius from the insane.

            Take for example Eliot Crane from Salman Rushdie’s short story “The Harmony of the Spheres” in the collection titles “East, West”. Eliot Crane is a writer whose path of knowledge was the occult. In his tireless chasing of the secret and knowledge guarded by time and organizations Eliot began to create knowledge and realties that permeated his rational life and began to take him over. He was a schizo. I said that knowledge is endless but pertaining to secret societies and the paranormal there is only so much a sane and rational human can accept. I feel that when Eliot could no longer get the satisfaction he got from uncovering new secrets or learning new rituals or spells, he began to satisfy himself with manifestations in his own head.

            Contrasting Eliot is his good friend Mr. Khan, who is also the narrator of the story. Mr. Khan is an average “yuman bean”. Eliot went mad from the pursuit of knowledge and truth and the desire to understand the higher order of things. It is this pursuit of knowledge that throws off the harmony in Eliot’s life. Mr. Khan on the other hand, sane as can be is satisfied with being average and doing things that average people should. It’s funny that the sane character seems to have less of an idea of what’s going on in his life than his insane friend. While Eliot was broken by the pursuit of knowledge that doesn’t exist, Khan was broken by the acceptance of knowledge that was always there.

            In a sense it seems like Eliot almost retained his sense of balance and harmony because he ended his life in his fashion of choice and was fully aware of what he was doing in his life even if it was because he was mad. Where on the other hand Khan was perceived to be sane yet had no idea what was going on behind the scenes in his life. Khan spent so much time with Eliot and never knew the true character of his friend it makes you wonder who truly was the fool of the two.

            So then how do we avoid ending up in the same pitfalls as these two characters. I fell that Rushdie’s message in this story is that everything isn’t as cryptic as we make it out to be. The contrast with the insane man obsessed with occult knowledge and the average Joe that can’t see what’s happening around him. All we need to do is be aware of who we are and what were doing, and ask ourselves if we are being consistent with our surroundings and who we want to be. As far as mental illness, good luck avoiding that head on collision, but I guess were all a little nuts at times so who’s to judge cause none of us know everything.