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Good
morning <$firstname$>,
Have
you seen “A
Beautiful Mind” with Russell Crowe ? The film
is based on a true story about a brilliant mathematician
coming to grips with schizophrenia, and it won four Academy
Awards in 2001.
I’ve
seen it a second time last week and was again captivated
not only by Crowe’s performance, but especially by
the fascinating illustration of how powerful the human mind
is.
While
Professor Nash teaches at a famous American university,
he is approached by secret service agents to decipher a
code which the enemies of democracy use for their subversive
activities, threatening national security. For years he
works with the agents, exploring millions of connections
and possibilities to uncover the mystery - until his wife
finds out about his hidden life and supports him on the
way out of the mess.
It
turns out that all the persons involved in the undercover
plot are totally fictitious, they only existed in the Professor’s
mind - so real for him, that he had developed a complete
second identity around his scenario. His weird behaviour
under these circumstances was obviously labeled 'madness'
by his 'normal' peers - and yet he won a Nobel Prize for
his academic work a few years later.
Genius
and madness are close neighbours, they say - assuming for
a minute that you and I don’t fall into either of these
categories, what is the lesson for 'normal' people here
? As far as I’m concerned, I show more consideration
for the unusual conduct of people these days.
Who
am I to judge others for things I don’t understand
? I know that I have some blind spots, and may be that odd
fellow I saw in the mall yesterday is a genius working out
the quadrature of the circle.
What’s
more, I am reminded that I, too live in my own world - like
you do in yours.
A
lot of things occupy my mind every day which directly influence
my actions because I am absolutely convinced that they are
perfectly sensible.
Most
of the time you wouldn’t find strange what I do, I
suppose, but I am sure that some people wonder who the fool
is that spends an hour on a perfect Sunday afternoon writing
articles like this.
What’s
on your mind ? Do you want to be president of your bowling
club ? Climb Mount Kilimanjaro ? That’s OK, but I personally
couldn’t be bothered.
The
point is that we are who we think we are, literally. I am
not a professor, and I don’t want to win the Nobel
Prize - but I want to write and that’s OK, too. Who
knows, may be they’ll give me the Pulitzer Prize one
of these days - call me crazy.
Until
next time, all the best from :
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