REAL is what you make it (Cultural Event #2)

                A beautiful mind; something in which all humans are greatly attributed with. Thinking, feeling, loving, hatred, and all other emotions and senses all derive from the one thing that brings life. The mind conceives the world for whatever it is. In the true case of John Nash, the main character in A Beautiful Mind, not only uses his mind to create brilliance, but also uses it to replace the things that were missing in his life. From the start of the movie, while beginning at Princeton in 1947, Nash is seen as a very odd and peculiar man. He constantly struggles with those closest around, often shutting them out to create the one theory that will make him known forever. All day he sits alone in his room trying to disprove mathematical and economic equations. His educational and mind is above the chart; however the loneliness of his past, having no real close relationship to his parents, and his inability to socialize sends him and his “Beautiful Mind” apart from his peers.

            Early in his college years, Nash’s insanity and lack of socialization begins to catch up with him. He soon creates two friends, His make believe roommate Charles Homer and Marcie the niece of Homer. This is in due to his subjected point of view of life. His difficulty coping with society made him subjective to what is real and fake.  It is quite odd that through these make believe entities it actually allows him to become a little more sociable. Soon his closing others off begins to dwindle away, however by then it is too late.

            Soon into his teacher career he meets the one woman that accepts is odd peculiar ways named Alicia Larden. Alicia is the one who bring out the objective point of view in nash. He seen has urpose and desire. However, the roots from his insanity still over take him. From the beginning of the movie it is clear that he becomes scared and awkward, perhaps because of a lack of a true mother that cared for him. However even after marriage his insanity progresses and eventually leads to his work. This is where his want to achieve that one thing that will make him great really puts his insanity into full effect. He creates another figure played by Ed Harris. This is where Nash takes it to the extreme and jeopardizes his family’s mental health by believing spies are after him for his fake work trying to uncover the bombing site of the Russians during the Cold War.

            It is truly difficult to examine and understand why Nash’s insanity reached this point; however him not having close family led to him having an inability to cope with other people. Loneliness led him to create the images in his mind that made him happy. When it comes to his obsession with work it was due to his teacher and peers telling him he would never amount to anything. Insanity, I believe, is a disorder that derives strictly from the mind. The pressure he placed upon himself and the non communication with others as a child caused him to create his own and distorted vision of the world. Thankfully he took control of his disease and well… the Nobel Prize became his. After a lifetime of suffering and feeling of unimportance he was greatly rewarded for battling and defeating the disease that almost destroyed him and his family.

           Nash's life, along with that of Elizabeth in Bessie Heads, A Question of Power. The story of objectivity and subjectivity directly correlate to their portrayals of madness. Each dealt with situations that confused their definition and belief of subjectivity and objectivity. Their confusion of what was real and what was wrong created their insanity. Note it was niether of their faults that their insanity was created, instead it were those that surrounded them with the ills of society that those indviduals were surrounded with and passed on to those they knew.