I came across an online documentary (included below) produced by BBC called “Dangerous Knowledge” and I couldn’t help feeling a deep connection to the first person presented in the documentary - Georg Cantor. Interestingly enough, the documentary began with a quote from one of my favorite poems by William Blake - Auguries of Innocence, which set the stage for what was to come. I of course didn’t relate to Cantor by his mathematical genius, but rather the isolation that he felt by living outside the realm of “the taken for granted” world. In the documentary, Dr Louis Sass describes Cantor’s situation in these words, “I think if you are a person that takes that step (outside the realm of “the taken for granted”) in a way you are already doomed to living outside in some way… so it’s not as if it’s only the intellectual project itself that takes you out there, there’s something about you as a person that this unnaturalness comes so naturally.”

The unnaturalness that is described is something that I often feel and that I’ve talked about briefly in some of my previous entries. It’s a deep connection to something that appears to be foreign to the rest of the world and in which the inevitable isolation forms from the grips it has on your relationship to everything. This deep connection communicates something that makes everything in the “taken for granted” world feel so artificial, plastic, fake and undesirable. It creates a longing in the core of your heart that forces you constantly seek deeper understanding for your existence, as the everyday world drifts far away from you. It’s a personal communication between you and something greater than everything, that only you and this greater phenomenon can share. I guess some might call this communication ‘religious experience’.

Later in the documentary, it was concluded that Cantor suffered from manic depression based on his psychiatrists notes that described his shifting moods and mental states, and which also landed him in a mental institution on multiple occasions. Most of the world I’m sure would believe that what Cantor saw was a delusion and product of his mental illness and emotionally maybe this would be correct. The people of his day saw him this way and refused to acknowledge his work. It wasn’t until after his death that his work was properly accepted and understood as pure genius.

This raises a major question for me in regards to the spectrum of mental illness. The current reality of the human species is that we are social organisms that delight in our ability to relate to each other and share common experiences. We want life to be predictable, controlled and understood. This is what forms the social and cultural fabric of our societies and institutions. Then there are those of us who don’t fit so neatly into this desired reality and depending on how extreme our disconnection is, the majority decides what to do with us. They begin by calling us eccentric, crazy or weird and as our disconnection grows, they suggest that we seek medical advice and get put on medication to prevent our minds from continuing to move away from the ‘norm’. What really is the problem though? Is it mental illness or how society interprets and deals with what it calls mental illness? Perhaps in some cases mental illness is simply caused by a mind that has evolved past its current generation’s way of thinking and has to live in a world that opposes its understanding of reality and the opposition it faces everyday causes it to breakdown and become mentally ill. I don’t have answers or solutions for bridging the gap between the majority and the mentally ill, but I do acknowledge that I do share a need with the majority as a social organism and this need is to relate in some way to others. It is refreshing to find someone who I can truly relate to even though he may be considered ‘crazy’ or mentally ill. Perhaps this relationship that I feel with Cantor is simply a way for me to not feel completely alone in certain aspects of my life. It’s a way for me to validate certain experiences. Cantor came to describe the infinite as an abyss between what he had seen and what he knew must be there, but could never reach; I describe my relationship with the infinite as an abyss between what I have seen and what I know must be there, but that I cannot seem to share with anyone.

Dangerous Knowledge: Part 1

Dangerous Knowledge: Part 2