Sick?...No Genius

Imagination? pretend? Visions?...You must have Schizophrenia.

I’m sure we’ve all heard people talk about bogus ideas, or thoughts on radical topics. But does that make them “sick?” There are people who have issues; actually, everyone has their own world of issues. I believe these issues, whether small or big, can take over one’s life.

I’ve never personally met someone who is schizophrenic; however, I have definitely heard my fair share of stories of people literally going insane with a disease such as that. Recently, I even read an article in “Psychology Today” about a man who felt everyone close to him in his life was against him. He had thought that his loved ones had been replaced by imposters, and had entered into his life to make him miserable. Doctors have pronounced this disease as Capgras delusion. There are many diseases that stereotype someone into being “sick.” I think society is even too quick at times in saying that some is “sick.”

However, one of the main characters in “The Harmony of Spheres,” Eliot Crane, is definitely someone who is labeled “sick.” Salman Rushdie writes this story in a very descriptive, dark light, just like his other stories in East, West: “The Prophet’s Hair” and “At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers.” Basically, “The Harmony of Spheres” is about a man, Eliot Crane, who is claimed to be schizophrenic. He imagines characters in his head from his writings, he feels the close people around him are Martians from another planet who are out to get him, and he imagines and visions stories about absurd situations. Eliot Crane found his harmony in writing, and yet his issues spawned from his writing as well. “He seemed better as long as he did not try to write, he seemed worse because not writing plunged him into such deep depressions…” (p. 127). Crane’s loved ones around him felt hopeless. His wife, Lucy, went along with Crane’s idealistic, schizophrenic ways for a long time, even leaving her great job to move out of a perfect house which Crane claimed to have been haunted. Lucy’s harmony was extremely affected by Crane’s life, and yet by sticking around with him, it almost brought harmony to her as well.

Khan, Crane’s friend, also found harmony in Crane’s schizophrenic life. “With his help, I hoped, I might make a ‘forbidden self.’ The apparent world, all cynicism and napalm, seemed wholly without kindness or wisdom…would show me how to be wise. It would grant me – Eliot’s favourite word, this – harmony” (p. 141).

People have there issues, and they also hold tight what makes them happiest – what brings harmony in their lives. Lucy continued to move on, as she had throughout the entire story, dealing with her issues and building her harmony. Khan, at the end of the story, is led to a whole set of new issues, but he seems to know how to balance his sorrows with his happiness quite well. And as for Eliot Crane, he never was able to overcome his issues, and was never able to truly grasp his harmony. He ended up killing himself, but the readers are led to believe at the end of the story that Eliot Crane was not completely “sick.” He actually made a lot of sense in his writings, his visions, his pictures; he just had trouble harmonizing his life.

Whether the issues you have are small or large, I think it’s important to confront them head on: therefore, no issue takes over your life, and deems you “sick.” And really, sometimes people are just too smart, too imaginative for their own well being! Perhaps?