A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness

Three-fourths of the miseries and misunderstandings in the world will disappear if we step into the shoes of our adversaries and understand their standpoint.

The unlucky, who, early in their lives, endure hardships and tragedies—or the challenge of mental illness—seem to become, not infrequently, our greatest leaders.

Our want of independence began to smart. It was unbearable that we should be unable to do anything without the elders’ permission. At last, in sheer disgust, we decided to commit suicide! But how were we to do it? From where were we to get the poison? We heard that Dhatura seeds were an effective poison. Off we went to the jungle in search of these

early failures repeatedly experienced by a person predisposed to depression inoculate against future illusion.

We tend to see mental health as “being normal”—happy, realistic, fulfilled.

I realized that it was not as easy to commit suicide as to contemplate it. And since then, whenever I have heard of someone threatening to commit suicide, it has had little or no effect on me. The thought of suicide ultimately resulted in both of us bidding good-bye to the habit of smoking. (italics in original)

Psychologists divide empathy into different parts—cognitive, affective, motor, and sensory—distinctions that, though a bit abstract, are useful. Cognitive empathy means thinking another person’s thoughts: I recognize that you have your own set of thoughts, and I try to understand what those thoughts are. Affective empathy involves feeling an emotio

The politics of radical empathy,

normal people have an illusory sense of control, especially if things seem to go well for them.

Taylor had discovered “positive illusion”—the opposite of depressive realism, a kind of healthy illusion found not just in a trivial button-pushing test, but in life-threatening illness.