Outliers

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 http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mfl/lowres/medical-mental_health-mental_states-sanity-craziness-bills-mfln4188l.jpg

About a year back I posted a blog titled: 'Bouquet for Booklet', in which was a photo of Ishani standing in front of me. It elicited the comment from a lady reader whom I had met only in blogspace:

"Ishani's expressions are, as always, outliers"

That was the first I met the word, 'outlier', and at once I clicked it on my online Webster window, and gathered that outliers are points way out of the normal distribution. 

I liked the word although this is the first time I am using it.

All kids are outliers, one way or the other, like Ishani. The other day my D-i-L gifted my son a new iPhone. Next morning he was looking for it everywhere and found Ishani sitting right under the dining table fiddling with his iPhone, safely away from all distractions.

Every genius is of course an outlier. Otherwise he wouldn't be a genius. Take Einstein for instance. In his twenties he revolutionized both Quantum Physics and Relativity. But then on he dropped out of mainstream physics and spent the rest of his life doggedly trying to unify gravity and electromagnetism, an exercise in futility. And was rebuked for this by Wolfgang Pauli who, in his late teens, wrote the first comprehensive Handbuch article on Einstein's own Relativity:

"Men ought not try to unify what God had asunder kept"

Well, that verb, 'kept', is an outlier, lying at the very end of the sentence, like all other German verbs ;) Sherlock Holmes said:

"It is the German who is so uncourteous to his verbs"

shunting them to the very end of sentences.

Well, Pauli himself was an outstanding outlier. He was troubled all the time by nightmarish dreams and had several sessions with Carl Jung:

...Pauli had numerous dreams that he discussed in therapy in which he poured out his nightmares and emotional troubles of ontological insecurity, anger, loneliness, helplessness and problems with men, women and society in general. The thematics of his dreams were about his work in quantum physics, philosophy, mathematics, mysticism, religion, alchemy and the prejudiced attitudes in European society. Jung found one symbol in Pauli's dreams that personified the mysticism of the numinous and that was fire...

 http://www.dreamresearch.ca/interpretations.php?interID=238

Yes, there IS an International Institute of Dream Research...surely an outlier...

Feynman regretted that he didn't pay much attention to Pauli's remarks on his Princeton seminar in which Einstein was half-dozing. 

And Feynman subtitles his crazy book:

"Adventures of a curious character"

I always wondered if the subtitle meant that Feynman was highly curious or was himself a curiosity. Maybe both.

And the fact that Feynman's book became a bestseller meant that everyone who read it is also an outlier, enjoying the crazy encounters of Feynman...only physics guys knew what Feynman was really talking about most of the time.

I don't know what is the precise opposite of 'outlier'. Let us call it, 'inkeeper', one who finds it safe to be right at the peak of the normal distribution...a most sensible and eminently ordinary character. 

I guess such 'inkeepers' are the most boring men as companions although they must be the best husbands...great providers and least demanding.

Paul Gauguin was such an ideal husband who gave his wife five kids, love, and ample money earned in business. But he ran away one night and ended up in Tahiti where he excelled in enchanting exploits in painting and other subjects and died of syphilis. 

And he had bitter fights with his contemporary of the 'Lust for Life' fame. It was rumored that Vincent van Gogh was such an outlier that he cut off his own ear in desperation. But recent research shows otherwise:

..He's known as the tortured genius who cut off his own ear, but two German historians now claim that painter Vincent van Gogh lost his ear in a fight with his friend, the French artist Paul Gauguin...Bleeding heavily, van Gogh then wrapped it in cloth, walked to a nearby bordello and presented the severed ear to a prostitute, who fainted when he handed it to her...

  http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=7506786

Some geniuses!

Life would be most boring but for tiny quirks in each of us.

Father was a fearless Head Master. He was never afraid of his rowdy students, hoodlum public, and corrupt audit officers. He dared them all and stuck to what he considered right. He was God-fearing and so feared no man.

But come night, he would fall asleep, and within an hour he would be shouting:

"Thieves! Thieves! Help! Help! Catch! Catch!"

And one of his daughters would wake him up and give him his glass of water. I was of course intent on letting him fight his thieves and see who wins and how.

Mother has always been a super-orthodox lady who would sit daily in her mornings for a couple of hours in her meditation...japam. And she has a self-imposed rule. She would ask everyone not to disturb her during her two hours of japam. For, if she is made to talk in between, she has to restart her japam all over from the beginning. She is very strict about it. None of us dare disturb her since she would be, like, climbing a grease pole.

But when the pressure cooker in the kitchen emits its fourth whistle and no one bothers about it, she would shout:

"Mind the cooker!"

and resume her japam, not from the beginning, but from where she had left it off.

I can't say for myself if I am really an outlier in craziness...my wife was quite explicit about it...and she ought to know best...

But my psychiatrist is a fan of Ishani booklets, and says nowadays:

"GPS is a very humorous"

The one that got away! 

I discovered just now that there is a book by Malcolm Gladwell titled:

"Outliers"

The subtitle reads: 'The Story of Success'

That says it all. Of course I didn't read it nor have a plan to do so. As our prolific Telugu lady-writer said:

"Where is the time to read?"

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