People tend to mythologize political and spiritual leaders of the past as heroes without blemish. That’s ok - up to a point. Then we compare our own selves, rife with flaws, to these unrealistic portraits of greatness. That’s not ok. By sterilizing their pasts of imperfection, we rob them of those interesting human traits that make the rest of us feel not so weird and hopeless.
So it’s in this vein of thinking that I present five historical figures who left a positive and lasting influence on society, but who exhibited disruptive idiosyncrasies and/or mental disorders.
- Samuel Johnson, the most quoted and respected of English writers after Shakespeare, would make chicken clucking sounds with his mouth, rock back and forth until it seemed he would topple over, and engage in strange and elaborate gestures - in public - due to his obsessive compulsive disorder and Tourettes syndrome.
- Winston Churchill, master statesman, officer in the British Army and prolific author who won the Nobel Prize in Literature, suffered feelings of being unloved and a depression so familiar, he named his depression “Black Dog”.
- Reverend Martin Luther, the German was a German theologian, church reformer and founder of Protestantism, was constantly grappling with his own self-perceived sinful nature, and would devote himself to long periods of fasting and prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession. He was ever fearful of eternal damnation, once stating “I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul.” These feelings of condemnation were due to Scrupulosity, a type of OCD regarding religion. If that wasn’t enough, Martin Luther suffered vertigo, constipation, hemorrhoids, and roaring in the ears.
- Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King was the longest serving PM in Canadian history who led the country through the Great Depression and World War Two. He was perceived as a stoic and safe-playing politian in public, but those who knew the man privately considered him nuttier than a Payday. Maybe it had something to do with the séances behind closed doors, to spirits like Leonardo da Vinci, Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his Irish Terrier dogs (who were all named Pat).
-
Heroic American explorer Merriwether Lewis, leader in the Voyage of Discovery, was suspected to have bi-polar disorder which ultimately drove him to commit suicide (the family maintains it was murder). It’s been said he would obsessively edit and re-edit his journals ad nauseum, manifesting symptoms of possible OCD as well. Lewis never married because of his extreme shyness.
Exit Question: Is it possible that these weaknesses and oddities helped shape their character and successes? One thing is for sure, you no longer have any excuses as to why you can’t change the world for the better.
STORY HERE