The Man With The Big Brain - A Cautionary Tale

Bob Holsom was proud of his big brain - not his intelligence per se, but the size of his brain which he thought was remarkable, for he had developed this theory that the larger the frontal lobes, the greater the intellectual capacity. 

He was proud of his large forehead, accentuated by a receding hairline, and was quick to share his theory with anyone who would listen.  He had a parlor game - although with very serious intent - that he liked to play with colleagues.  The one who could take the longest time to draw a straight line from Point A to Point B, a few inches only, would be the smartest. 

Bob had devised the theory based on his 'Concentration Paradigm' which stated that people with the mental discipline to focus on small tasks and continue to do so until their completion, were of higher intelligence. 

Christopher Barkley, for example, spent whole nights in his basement studio drawing intricate pine trees, each needle done with one, irreversible stroke.  He had learned this technique in China where he had studied classical painting with Liu Tze Xi - a technique that combined traditional Chinese ink drawing with Zen Buddhism.

 

Christopher had read everything he could on the martial arts and especially swordsmanship, the highest expression of pure Zen concentration.  For hours he would sit in the lotus position in his room reading  Haiku and imagining the sound of one hand clapping, the paradoxical Zen koan which symbolized the evanescent nature of reality; and then start work on his trees. 

Each branch took hours, for the concentration and mental preparation for each stroke took time - the stoke must be accurate, perfect, and pure.  When he emerged from his studio into the bright light of morning, tired and unfocussed from the effort of such miniscule, close work, he pulled down the shades.  He needed time and space to adjust to the transition from pure concentration to the diffuse, random sights and sounds of the day. 

 

Christopher was not only a gifted Zen artist, but a mathematician and musician.  There was obviously some carryover, some neurological links between the parts of he brain responsible for each discipline, or perhaps all three were part of the same brain architecture and all subject to his recall. 

In any case Bob was fascinated by Christopher, the son of one of his colleagues, and asked if he could observe him for scientific reasons, nothing more.  At first the young man hesitated, for it would mean that he would be observed during his long nights at his drawing board and followed during his recitals and MIT classes in logarithmic calculus; but after little persuasion agreed. 

Now, there was no scientific research on record that made any association between frontal lobes, concentration, and high intelligence, so Bob, rather than undeterred, undertook his own observations with renewed vigor.  He found, recruited, and paid volunteers with prominent foreheads - the external sign of large frontal lobes - reviewed their academic records and gave them the line test. 

Most of the volunteers quit after ten or fifteen minutes - Bob paid them regardless of how long they held the pen - and were convinced that he was 'a little off', happy to have some spending money but deciding never to return to Bob's makeshift laboratory - a windowless room in the basement of Markum Hall. 

In fact Bob, who was convinced that he was the example of frontal lobe intelligence, was alien-looking in appearance - an exceedingly large head and unusually prominent forehead set atop a long neck and bony body - but he was proud of it and did everything possible to accentuate it. He would tilt his head at just the right moments in the right light and shadows, sweep his hair theatrically back in a gesture which would expose the wide reaches of his forehead, and hold his head in his hands, covering all but his forehead. 

Christopher, like Bob's laboratory volunteers, found his presence annoying and his premise doubtful, and politely told him that his busy schedule could no longer accommodate this additional responsibility. 

Word of Bob's obsession spread in the small town where he lived, and before long, he was passed by.  Small towns are like that, enclosures of settled propriety; but Bob was still surprised at how he became a laughing stock.  When children passed him on the street, they pointed to their foreheads, googled their eyes and stuck out their tongues, and adults in line at the post office couldn't help but stare at his head, now appearing even larger thanks to the distortions of gossip and fable-telling. 

Bob's job as Senior Accountancy Clerk at the New Brighton National Bank was perfect for him, for his days were spent in the minutiae of adding and subtracting.  Although he felt that his intelligence was far greater than what was required of him at the bank, he found his ability to concentrate on the smallest, most insignificant details of money transfers, deposits, and withdrawals satisfying and proof of his uniqueness. 

At first Bob had looked for girlfriends with large foreheads - mating with a like individual would be sure to produce the first of a long lineage of superiorly endowed children - but those that met his stringent criteria were so ashamed of what they considered their deformity, that they hid in the shadows, wallflowers by choice.  Homeliness is as homeliness does, and these women because of their misshapenness became homely in spirit - a humorless, dour lot. 

Bob, despite his peculiar and particular anatomical focus, had been brought up in a traditional home - pretty mom, and especially good-looking dad who had an eye for the ladies and one of whose first bits of wisdom passed on to his son was, 'Women want it as much as we do, Bob' a homily meant to discourage usual male adolescent timidity. 

Bob's father in fact felt under special obligation to encourage his son who had unfortunately inherited none of the attractive genes of his parents and looked sadly like his Uncle Harry, a misshapen thing with a basso profundo voice who ruined every Christmas dinner with his stories of Borneo. 

So it was no surprise that Bob was attracted to the prettiest girls in his class, and although he had no success with them, he never lost interest.  So, scientific inquiry, self-image, and sexual desire all conflicted and in the usual approach-avoidance situations (Havelock Ellis) he pined for female company but spent nights alone. 

If he was to be an eccentric recluse, then he might as well take advantage of the isolation that came with it.  He applied to a number of graduate school departments of Neuro-psychology and sent them examples of his work.  Not surprisingly he heard back from none of them. 

Undaunted Bob kept up his work and after a year completed 'On Frontal Lobe Pathology - Pathway To Genius', a four-hundred page self-published book he hoped would gain him the recognition he had always expected and felt he deserved. 

Amazon took it for a fee - in these days of AI and electronic marketing, it cost them nothing to put the book for sale - but interest was desultory at best and trickled off to nothing. 

So, old Triple B (Big Brained Bob) kept on at the bank.  The New Brighton Herald did a Style Section piece on Bob - 'How Big Is Your Brain - Time To Measure Up' and for a time he was in the spotlight but not exactly the Nobel variety he wished. In fact because the piece was a tongue-in-cheek bit of snarky journalistic bravado, he was even more of a side show attraction than before. 

Somewhere along the way he got religion.  He had been taken by the physiognomy of some of the Church's most revered, although lesser known saints, all of whom were noted for their miracles and their unusual appearance.  St. Lucinda Parra de Montoya had been a nun in the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Quito when the Virgin Mary appeared to her and told her to go out among the people, which she did and cured a mortally ill girl of twelve.  Her miracle and - to Bob - her phrenology, were impressive. Maybe there was a link between spiritual destiny and the frontal lobes as well. 

Bob never did find a suitable mate, and was supposedly seen in Coeur d'Alene in a forest community of 'anti-socialists', men and women who rejected bourgeois America and lived in an environment of complete intellectual fantasy where any idea was given attention and immediately absorbed as received wisdom. 

A fitting end to his life if it was true - finally a congenial home for a man with unusual ideas that fit nowhere except in a place where that was exactly the point.