Brain Wave

by Poul Anderson

Though could you expect anything different? You take a typical human, a worker in factory or office, his mind dulled to a collection of verbal reflexes, his future a day-to-day plodding which offered him no more than a chance to fill his belly and be anesthetized by a movie or his television – more and bigger automobiles, more and brighter plastics, onward and upward with the American Way of Life. Even before the change, there had been an inward hollowness in Western civilization, an unconscious realization that there ought to be more in life than one’s own ephemeral self – and the ideal had not been forthcoming.

Insanity – yes, that had a lot to do with the collapse. There must be millions who had not been able to stand that sudden range and sharpness of comprehension. They hadn’t been able to handle their new power, and it had driven them mad.

‘Quite apart from those who’ve gone insane, and they’re an important factor, there remains the necessity of not only having something to think with, but something to think about.

what is superbrained man going to do with his powers, what can he find worthy of his efforts?