Sunday 11 May 2014

THE TORMENTS OF A BEAUTIFUL MIND

There is something and someone that in the entire time I have never spoken of.

There was a film about someone with an exceptional mind and a dreadful condition that led to an unusual story that eventually someone made a movie that quite rightly won awards.

This was a film that never appealed to me but the moment it was over had managed to place itself in pole position as one of the greatest and most powerfully moving films I have ever seen.

It reached out to me on so many levels and despite some similarities to my own events what this man could do was beyond anything I could hope for in my life. But his gift came with a curse yet he had an incredible amount of support to help him. He suffered from schizophrenia that was not actually spotted for many years even during a romance and until after he and his wife were married.

To my shock it turned out to be very true. I had absolutely no idea and sick a moving and beautiful but also dark and tragic story turning out to be true hit me like the proverbial locomotive train!

It reminded of something an actor friend of a friend said once that very intelligent people are also a little ... tortured, or mad as he put it.

This played upon my thoughts for the longest time sometimes fading into the back of my mind for awhile before popping back up again.

Torture of the mind in any form is not something that should be taken lightly and there are no word that can describe this. In this man's life his suffering of delusions one can not even imagine. Trapped is obe way to describe it at times and searing torture akin to a thousand sharp blades at others, loosely.

But his unique ability to see patterns and links was one of pure wonder and despite it obe can imagine that he would give it up in a heartbeat to have not had the darkest moments his afflictions bought about to both him and his family.

Would you believe that this very same, if not entirely sane, man was put forward for and awarded the Noble Peace Prize!

I am speaking of course of the famous Harvard Professor John Nash and the film about him being A Beautiful Mind brilliantly acted by none other than Russell Crowe with the also brilliant Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer.

Never have I felt so humbled by a story my entire life as I have his and it will be forever burned into my very soul.

Such a show of respect for a brilliant and tormented mind was down to him by this around him not lest of all those professors who also lectured at Harvard. When each one approached his table and left their fountain pens as a sign of respect and on a very rare occasion I shed tears.

Despite my constant and surely nauseating rambles at times of the darkness that exists in life and the world I am sometimes reminded of the times that there had been heart wrenching shows of compassion and respect and with Professor John Nash that was one of those times.

Perhaps from time to time my memory might show me to recall now inspiring true stories such as these so that I can wax lyrical about individuals I truly see as ones I would or do look up to?

Make a nice and hopefully hear warming change from the usual humdrum I report and write about.

No comments:

Post a Comment