Buy oxycontin….

@ Shub – excellent. Tell me how you like it.

“It is perhaps no accident that many great scientists, leaders, and religious prophets seem to walk the crater rim of the volcano of psychosis, and to have relatives with schizophrenia. James Joyce, Albert Einstein, Carl Gustav Jung, and Bertrand Russell all had close relatives with schizophrenia. Isaac Newton and Immanual Kant might both be described as ‘schizotypal.’ One absurdly precise study estimates that 28% prominent scientists, 60% composers, 73% painters, 77% novelists, and an astonishing 87% poets have shown some degree of mental disturbance.”

What I liked best about Ridley’s discussion is the focus on the positive – he describes schizotypal people as brilliant, self-assured and focussed. See these people are not just scientists but paradigm makers and breakers and that is no light burden. Look at this Omnibrain post – http://scienceblogs.com/omnibrain/2007/04/the_difference_between_scienti.php

I find well adjusted scientists and contributors to be even more fascinating – Richard Feynman and Benjamin Franklin spring to mind – they were dilletantes (when this was an honorific term) and engaged with people while transforming their worlds. Feynman’s letters and Franklin’s Autobiography are both riveting books. They are very silent about the very real challenges they experienced and I think Einstein another shockingly balanced was very right when he said –

If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.

@ Lotus – Wow, I didn’t know he was bipolar. Certainly explains things – yes, a lot brilliant folks who were/are afflicted. Oh, and thanks for the recommendation on the biography. Will add it to my list.

I have had “A Short History of Nearly Everything” sitting on my bookshelf for a quite a while now and just haven’t been motivated to take it down and read it until now!

I love the story of Issac Newton, he was quite a quirky character…you should try to read his biography by James GLick (it’s a tiny little book but packs a punch). They are now saying that the reason he was this way was because he suffered from bipolar disorder which as you know confers great energy and orginality of thought…Abe Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Beethoven, Tolstoy, Dickens and many others are also supposed to have suffered with it. Darn, don’t you hate being normal?