Finding your balance between Pinky and the Brain

Pinky: Gee, Brain. What do you want to do tonight?

Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky – ‘Try to take over the world!’

Pinky and the Brain are two genetically enhanced laboratory mice, in an American animated TV series – ‘Pink and the Brain’. Both reside in a cage in the ACME labs research facility. Brain is self-centred and scheming while Pinky is goof-natured but feebleminded. In each episode, brain devises a new plan to “Take over the world”, which ultimately ends in failure, usually due to Pinky’s idiocy, the impossibility of Brain’s plan, Brain’s own arrogance or just circumstances beyond their control.

The Brain’s Personality

Things will be different when I take over the world – The Brain

Brain’s head is large and wide, housing his abnormally large brain. He is highly intelligent and develops complex plans for global domination, using political, cultural references and his own inventions towards his goals. He seems coldly unemotional, speaking in a sarcastic deadpan. Despite his malevolent plans, he is not really in the typical sense, a villain.

In an episode he said to Pinky, “We are on our way to fame, fortune and a world that’s a better place for all”. Many of Brain’s plots had the endgame of winning over the people’s hearts and having them make him their ruler. However his motives are not pure. Brain sees his inevitable rise to power as good for the world and not mere megalomania [greed for power].

Pinky’s Personality

Pinky although intelligent in his own right, is an extremely unstable and hyperactive mouse and has an extremely short attention span. Pinky’s appearance is completely opposite to Brain’s – while Brain is short, has a crooked tail, pink eyes, and speaks in a deeper, more eloquent manner, Pinky has a straight tail, blue eyes, is taller than the Brain and speaks in a higher pitched native London accent.

Pinky is more open-minded, kinder and far happier than the Brain. Troubles never ruin his day – mostly because he’s too scatter-brained to notice them. He steadfastly helps Brain toward world domination as best as he can, even though Brain usually berates, belittles and insults him, and hits him in the head – Pinky seems to enjoy this with laugher. He’s happy just being with his best friend, and the only thing that would ever truly make him sad is being separated from Brain.

The child wisdom and things that really matter

Pinky is a complete opposite of Brain’s more rigorous and realistically grounded logic – however Brain’s schemes have sometimes tapped into Pinky’s knowledge which first came off as childish stupidity. He is also arguably Brain’s moral compass and only real friend. In an episode Pinky sold his soul to get Brain the world – Brain’s all time life goal – but Brain in turn did his best to find and save Pinky because he missed him and the world wasn’t worth ruling without him, though he wouldn’t admit it out loud.

Big dream is great – we all need it. Even more so achieving it is greater. But the question is, ‘Will it give you the peace of mind and fulfilment you desire?’ In the end, what every man and woman seek is self-fulfilment and peace of mind.

Where Talent and Intelligence fails and stupidity wins

In “Welcome to the Jungle”, episode, Pinky was able to survive in the jungle using his instincts and become a leader to Brain, who, despite his intelligence, lacked such instincts and couldn’t survive in the wild on his own until circumstances forced him to.

In real life scenario, commonsense will almost always prove to be more valuable than intelligence than talent would. If this is not so, then the most intelligent people would have been the richest and most influential people in the world – sadly not. Creativity can be found in intelligence as well as, and sometimes more readily, in perceived stupidity.

Misplaced priorities

In one episode, Brain finds himself hypnotised by a Psychologist, Sigmund Freud. There Brain reveals that he originally lived with his parents in a tin can at the base of a tree in a large field. When he was young, ACME researchers captured Brain and took him from his home, and the last he saw of it was a picture of the world on the side of the can. Dr. Freud speculates that Brain’s hunger to take over the world is misplaced and that all he really wants is to go back home to his parents.

Giving most of your time chasing after the wrong things, due to misunderstood past experience or background? It is natural to draw strength from our past experience to reach out for greater accomplishment, but much better when we have a clear understanding of those experiences.

Pinky’s inimitable attitude to life

In a cross episode with Rita and Runt (featured characters), Pinky had to share his cage with Rita his roommate. Since Rita was a cat she was seen tormenting and scaring him and in the end even ate him. When he got inside Rita’s tummy, he said that Rita had nice accommodations.

Let me compliment that with a quote by Vivian Greene: “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It is about learning to dance in the rain”. Unlike Brain, Pinky is indeed a master in the art of ‘dancing in the rain’.

Finding your balance between Pinky and the Brain

These two characters at the best of their personalities – Pinky, at the extreme end of stupidity and lack of seriousness, yet creative in his own sense, Brain, at the extreme of self-absorption, dedication and absolute reliance in his intelligence and self. No extreme is better than the other. The idea is to find a balance – putting our intelligence to use and at the same time allowing the ‘child’ in us to shine. This is where true creativity lies – in the balance.