Welcome to Gaia! ::

There have been a lot of theorys presented about what makes a scientist a 'mad', but I feel that they all fall short in some respect. The tradditional mad always starts out as a true benefactor of humankind. An idealist seeking to cure some hideous disease or find a way to lift humanity to reach dreams of grandure. Look at the classics and you will see all manner of mads who seek to create eternal youth, to cheat death, to give humans the means to live forever or to create some kind of paradise on Earth, or to escape Earth for worlds, or universe unknown. These are the ideals that invariably lead to madness.

Towit I have created a character for a roleplay named Lassa who is insane. She's a brilliant research scientist who works to find cures for humanities most horrible diseases, but she is so afraid of becoming a mad and loosing some horrific plague on the rest of humanity that she believes in her heart of hearts that the world would be better off if she were dead. This belief is at odds with her belief that she exists for some purpose greater than mere breathing. So she feels it's wrong for her to kill herself but she also believes that the world would be a safer place without her in it.

She's a research scientist with multiple degrees in pathology, virology and genetics. She is quite mad. She refuses to get emotionally involved with people because she does not want to hurt anyone when the madness finally claims her because, you see, she knows that she's insane.

You may want to argue the point. Maybe she is not infact, insane. But she believes that she is. And that is a form of insanity in itself.

I rather doubt that "everyone" is correct in this case.

"always never correct"? I like that! smile

while people who are truly mad may no longer be self-aware, those who are slipping into madness may have a dreadful sense of the process!

to me this is part of the shivery attraction of Poe, that sense of reason teetering on the brink.