Well, the cost and the purpose needs to be balanced. If the cost is small ( and this is relative and subjective) one cannot stop the family from a collapse. But the point is who else is paying the cost? Not at others cost. Genius ought to know this balancing.

Unfortunately, it does seem as though "the drive" naturally ends up excluding the family. The drive, the compulsion, the obsession to see brilliance from beginning to end (does light every really stop?)...huh. I never thought of it that way, but it certainly seems true. Or, maybe, we only HEAR about the families that collpase. I wonder why it is that way? Sad, that such amazing advancement might cost the genius his family. :-(

My first impulse was to laugh... this is SO true. (I delight in truths...even "hard" truths.) Your perception is sharp and so well expressed!