The High and the Low

     I just finished reading Life of Pi for the third time. For simplicity's sake, Yann Martel tells a story about a boy lost at sea with a tiger in a life boat. Every time I read it different lines strike me - so it goes, I guess, with any story. In this reading I found an excerpt that I would like to share.

"High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar."

     Obviously, you will see the connection I'm meaning to make here. I read this short passage and was halted at its unbelievable connection to one of the most prominent themes we've discussed this semester. There is a further connection, though, that this allows me to realize only after writing my final project. The quickest connection between the high and the low is madness. In madness, or wise-foolishness as Euterpe so deemed it, a supreme understanding is found; in her presentation, Euterpe used Puck as an example, "the only one who understands dreams." In the moment cited above, Pi is delirious, driven mad by his experiences at sea: and he finds clarity and sanctuary.
     It is an epiphany I am, perhaps, quite late in seeing, but it's one of the most important, I think. Shakespeare uses madness as the highest form of wisdom in every play we've read this semester; he especially uses the "sane" character's labeling and ignorance of the madness as a tool to show the high's being blind to real wisdom. The low are high only because they are mad.