by Dr. David Fialk, Editor / Publisher - - - - Art by Alberto Lenz

It was my daughter's bas mitzvah. Her aunt and grandmother, her mother's sister and mother, were in town. My daughter, her mother and I were conversing in her mother's kitchen. Her mother said, "My sister is crazy, and my mother is out of her mind." My daughter, without any expression on her face, shot me a glance, during which we shared this thought, "If your sister is crazy, and your mother is out of her mind, then what does that say about you?"

Obviously, this line of reasoning can be extended to include the others who were present in the kitchen: what does that say about my daughter, sharing her mother's genetics, or me, who willingly married into the family?

I've always been attracted to strange minds: artists criminals, the insane. At the University of Connecticut, I was housemates with the man, who was then already well on his way to becoming the biggest marijuana dealer in western Connecticut. Through him I met a pair of friends recently released from prison on the condition that they attend university. All the convicts took an IQ test and, this pair, having scored the highest on it, were called down to the warden and released. I used to smoke hash and play chess with one. The other was a housemate of ours.

By definition, artists have to think outside the box. Acutely sensitive, wed to their own peculiar vision, they react strangely. The genius that inspires them, often renders them a little mad.

Of course, I am painting here with a very broad brush. There are thuggish, uninteresting criminals, just as there are accomplished artists, who are not on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

These days, 50% of Americans have a psychiatric diagnosis. But even back when such things were relatively rare, I had an affinity for folks who were whacky. When I was actively doctoring, I looked forward with special relish to visits with my psychiatric patients. After reciting one a poem of mine about divine madness (appended below), he commented with great camaraderie, "You understand." I do, perhaps too well.

There is a Chassidic story about a kingdom whose entire harvest of grain was infected with ergot, the fungus from which LSD was isolated. The king and his prime minister had the last uncontaminated grain, and that supply was running low. "We will have to eat the contaminated grain, and we, too, will go crazy," lamented the king. The always-resourceful minister suggested, "Let us make the mark of an X on our foreheads, and then, when we see the mark, we will remember that we are crazy."

The world can be divided into two types of people, those who know that they are crazy and those who don't. In some very real sense, I think that that is the best we can do.

My friend W is exquisitely sensitive. We get along well when we are together because I'm hyper-sensitive myself. But twice, when a random third person has come into our orbit, I've been surprised at how intolerant W became.

W, somewhat of a scientist himself, objects to the science I sometimes espouse in these articles, particularly that there is some sort of cosmic mind. The last such objection had to do with my assertion, based on the time available and the odds of having two random mutations build on each other (and so advance evolution), that evolution cannot be random, must be "intelligent," that is, towards some goal.

When we met recently on a back street, me on my bicycle and him in his car, he voiced this objection, again, with his usual patronizing, almost parental disapproval. Having gone through medical school, I've taken more 500 level science courses than I can count, but here was W suggesting that I get my information from podcasters, entertainers, who are only in it for the bucks.

It just so happens that when I went home, Youtube's algorithm had suggested for me a video featuring a world-renown scientist who backed up my assertion that genes somehow know how to mutate to adjust to a change in the environment.

When I sent him the link to and description of the video, W wrote back that he was familiar with him and acknowledge that his opinions need to be reckoned with. But then, as I had witnessed with his intolerance towards others, W got ugly, going on to compare my unorthodox scientific perspectives with Holocaust denial.

The word Nazi gets thrown around a lot these days. W didn't actually call me a Nazi, but he came really close. Especially among Jews, and we are both Jews, that's crossing a line.

W questioned my science. I brought support for my opinion. I expected a different, more collegial reaction, not name calling. It seems he's holding onto the reins too tightly, not flexible where I ask him to bend.

I don't want to compare my IQ with his. W is smarter. Of course, there are problems with being too smart. Still my only real advantage, and it's a big one, is that when I look in the mirror, I can remember why there's an X on my forehead.

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