Tesla's Pigeon

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:”
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And weather pigs have wings

[Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass]

…And why a soul is tied in knots—
And whether pigeons sing.

It is often said that one of Nikola Tesla's weirdest quirks was his fondness for pigeons, particularly for one white pigeon with whom he “fell in love.” In fact, he was fond of pigeons. He spent hours on a park bench feeding them. He rescued pigeons who were hurt, and he left his hotel room open so that they could fly into his room to dine on his special mix of food. Of course, this created a horrible mess, and he was evicted from several hotels due to pigeon droppings.

Tesla's love of pigeons dated back to his childhood. Pigeons, common in the Balkans, often flourished around monasteries. They flew above his father's church, next door to Nikola's childhood home. His boyhood was populated by animals - not only pigeons, but a cat, horses, chickens, frogs, and bugs. He had a rich connection to the natural world: to the “oxygen-filled air” that blew down from the mountains, the streams in which he played, swift currents of the rivers in which he so often swam, the trees that soared above him dappling the sunlight as he took his solitary rambles through the woods. This connection was part of his makeup and so meaningful that, from his earliest years, he was determined to “harness the forces of nature” to serve human needs.

For all of his adult life, however, Tesla lived in hotels. The busy world of the city was evidence of the continuing development of his goal. What Tesla called “motive energy” were natural forces put to work powering elevators, trains, cars, electric lights and appliances, even powering the steam that warmed his apartment and drove water up the pipes to his sink. All this must have been a source of satisfaction and an inspiration to him. However, the intimate, sensual connection to nature he had experienced in his youth was denied him by his city life. For the genius who spent his time solving problems of engineering and pondering the deepest secrets of the universe had forced into the recesses of his psyche all emotional and sensual attachments. He did this in order to concentrate on his work. He thought he was successful. He was under the impression that through strict discipline he had conquered all his emotional and sensual needs, but he was wrong. An essential part of his psyche held onto human longing.

Perhaps, as he grew older, the inventor who “thrived on his thoughts” began to feel a void. In his last years, Tesla began to realize that he had taken his work about as far as he could. With more time to reflect, he began looking back on his life. He didn’t look back with regret. His work had given him the profoundest joy. In old age, however, his suppressed needs began to surface. In an interview with a young Serbian reporter, a dreamy-eyed seventy-year-old Tesla spoke of a girl he had known in his youth who had“ hypnotic” eyes. At his eighty-third birthday celebration he spoke of the cottage where he used to hide from reporters, perhaps remembering, too, the days of swimming and walking through woods.

Tesla had given up so much: the family in Serbia to whom he had not written in years, a wife and a home, things he inwardly longed for, the idea of settling down with friends and family, especially children, having friends “drop by” without need of a doorman, or an appointment, or a written note passed on by a concierge. He had left behind his beloved woodland walks and swimming, casual chats with neighbors, which Tesla was prone to do during the short two and a half years at the Long Island home. So instead, he made a city park a forest, his favorite city bench a neighborhood. There, he met friends and spoke to passers-by, and he spent so much of his time feeding pigeons. Rarely if ever, when thinking of Tesla, does the public consider the effects of such a profound sacrifice.

As for the particular pigeon that visited his hotel windowsill, Tesla reportedly said, “I loved that pigeon as a man loves a woman, and she loved me.” Whether these were Tesla's exact words or whether paraphrased by biographer John O’Neil, the statement is often quoted as proof that Tesla was “strange.” But the thoughtless turn of phrase, “he fell in love with a pigeon” changed “loving” to “falling love,” and it takes us beyond love to a sort of romantic attachment. It amps eccentricity up to utter weirdness. If his love for a pet was romantic, as the expression, “fell in love,” suggests, then we see Tesla, not as a man who suffered and loved and had deep human longings. Instead, we characterize him as a kook living in an inscrutable Looking Glass world of electrical frequencies. He becomes somehow less than human, and while we respect his genius, we write him off as a freak.

But any human can build a relationship with an animal. It is perfectly natural, once you begin thinking of it as a living creature, one that shares the Earth with us, which is exactly how Tesla thought of all God's creations. Most of us who have ever owned a pet - a dog, a cat or even a pigeon - can understand how the presence or the daily visits of a pet would make a lonely hotel room a home, much as a loved one, perhaps a wife, makes a home simply by being there. Of course, it isn’t entirely normal to let pigeons bombard your apartment with droppings, especially for a germaphobe. Tesla was eccentric and maybe in old age losing some of his marbles. But as he fed and nursed and cared for his special pigeon, he was entirely human. And she, in turn, began to pry open all the emotion he had so long sealed shut. “As long as I had her,” Tesla reportedly said, “there was a purpose in my life.” As with so many of us, caring for animals, especially for a pet fills an emotional void. If we approach Tesla with a bit of compassion, we begin (and only begin) to understand the complexity of his personality - and its simplicity, too.