A small synopsis of the story:

Our protagonist, Charlie, is born with low I.Q. He’s basically a retardate. He undergoes an operation that successfully increased the intelligence of a mouse named Algernon.

The operation turns out a success on the human boy too. Not only did it push Charlie’s unusually low I.Q. up higher, it made him a genius. His intelligence surpassed that of the scientists behind the whole procedure.

Algernon’s state begins to deteriorate. And, eventually, so does Charlie’s.

“How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes — how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.”

When Charlie was a retardate, he was yearning to be smart and have all the knowledge of the world.
When Charlie became intelligent – a genius actually, he started having existential inquiries, he became cynical and lonely. He yearned for human contact.

Ah, the disquiet of the human nature. Charlie is obviously subject to both ends of the spectrum. We will not experience such polar opposite states in our lives. Albeit they may not be black and white, these states are sufficiently different that conflicts and fluctuations between them is inevitable.

So what does it take to reach a plateau of contentment?

In my opinion, contentment is a tenuous state, so dull that one cannot even bear stabilizing themselves around. Happy fluctuations everybody.