Mar. 12th, 2003 01:53 pm
A beautiful time
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muckefuckApparently, I had plans to meet up with my old school chum last night. I didn't realise this until I returned at 12:30 a.m. and found a semi-coherent message from him on my machine. His last e-mail to me had been so confused, I'd assumed my evening was free and proposed dinner to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
welcomerain. She said we couldn't do Jin ju because spookyfruit was recovering from food poisoning (that he asked me like five times if it was reported on LJ or not).
We went to Nha Trang on the chance that it might not be long for this world. It was okay: They had the meatiest cha gio I've ever had and a tasty lemon chicken, but they pissed me off with their use of iceberg lettuce--in cooked dishes! The only thing iceberg has going for it is crunch (and even that's not enough to make me eat it), so why the hell would you cook it?spookyfruit ordered the beef chop suey, which came without beef. I can't even remember the last time I was someplace with chop suey on the menu; it brought back self-conscious memories of eating Chun King™.
Afterwards,spookyfruit wanted ice cream and was dismayed with the selection at the local stop 'n' rob, so welcomerain convinced him to ride the bus with her to the Wag's--sort of. I mean, he did wait, but under protest. He rightly claims that he never whines, but, Mary's tits, does he complain! When we got there, we found that the wondrous selection welcomerain had promised had been inexplicably reduced. In the checkout line, spookyfruit was offering to buy me sundry items as we passed them until welcomerain could no longer contain her mocking.
We got the same bus driver back down as we did up--a side-effect of living so close to the turnaround point. At the corner,spookyfruit detoured us again, this time into the video store. When he found out neither I nor welcomerain had seen "A Beautiful Mind", he grabbed it. Even though I never see movies any more, it was one that, for personal reasons, I had really meant to catch in the theatres.
It was about what I expected. Even Howard's maudlin directorial choices couldn't detract much from Crowe's stunning performance or the inherent fascination of the story--even in its heavily sanitised and simplified version. I thought many aspects of the disease were well-captured and, thankfully, it didn't imply that not taking medication was a path to recovery as strongly as I heard it did. (The implication is counteracted mainly by a comment Crowe's character makes near the end about how well "some of the newer medications" work.)
But it didn't do anything to contradict on of the most damaging misconceptions about mental illness: That overcoming it is primarily a matter of willpower. Maybe that was the deciding factor in this particular case, but that makes it an anomaly. Before I left,spookyfruit and I had a short but significant conversation about this. Mental disorders are so hard to understand because, to healthy people, it seems that sufferers should be able to recover simply by taking a decision to resist the depression, delusions, and despair. After all, at the end of movie, Nash says the delusions haven't gone away, he's just chosen to disregard them. How simple! Why can't everyone learn that trick?
Because that's not the way it works when your brain is missing certain receptors or not producing enough of certain chemicals. I'm sure motivation helps, but it needs something to build on. The people I know who are functioning well despite schizophrenia or depression or bipolar or whatever benefit from a combination of good medication and a solid support network. The latter is implied in the film (where would he be without his wife's decision to keep him out of the hospital or his old school chum's assistance in reconnecting to the university community?), but takes a definite backseat to the more dramatic theme of one man's struggle to succeed.
welcomerain. She said we couldn't do Jin ju because spookyfruit was recovering from food poisoning (that he asked me like five times if it was reported on LJ or not).We went to Nha Trang on the chance that it might not be long for this world. It was okay: They had the meatiest cha gio I've ever had and a tasty lemon chicken, but they pissed me off with their use of iceberg lettuce--in cooked dishes! The only thing iceberg has going for it is crunch (and even that's not enough to make me eat it), so why the hell would you cook it?
spookyfruit ordered the beef chop suey, which came without beef. I can't even remember the last time I was someplace with chop suey on the menu; it brought back self-conscious memories of eating Chun King™.Afterwards,
spookyfruit wanted ice cream and was dismayed with the selection at the local stop 'n' rob, so welcomerain convinced him to ride the bus with her to the Wag's--sort of. I mean, he did wait, but under protest. He rightly claims that he never whines, but, Mary's tits, does he complain! When we got there, we found that the wondrous selection welcomerain had promised had been inexplicably reduced. In the checkout line, spookyfruit was offering to buy me sundry items as we passed them until welcomerain could no longer contain her mocking.We got the same bus driver back down as we did up--a side-effect of living so close to the turnaround point. At the corner,
spookyfruit detoured us again, this time into the video store. When he found out neither I nor welcomerain had seen "A Beautiful Mind", he grabbed it. Even though I never see movies any more, it was one that, for personal reasons, I had really meant to catch in the theatres.It was about what I expected. Even Howard's maudlin directorial choices couldn't detract much from Crowe's stunning performance or the inherent fascination of the story--even in its heavily sanitised and simplified version. I thought many aspects of the disease were well-captured and, thankfully, it didn't imply that not taking medication was a path to recovery as strongly as I heard it did. (The implication is counteracted mainly by a comment Crowe's character makes near the end about how well "some of the newer medications" work.)
But it didn't do anything to contradict on of the most damaging misconceptions about mental illness: That overcoming it is primarily a matter of willpower. Maybe that was the deciding factor in this particular case, but that makes it an anomaly. Before I left,
spookyfruit and I had a short but significant conversation about this. Mental disorders are so hard to understand because, to healthy people, it seems that sufferers should be able to recover simply by taking a decision to resist the depression, delusions, and despair. After all, at the end of movie, Nash says the delusions haven't gone away, he's just chosen to disregard them. How simple! Why can't everyone learn that trick?Because that's not the way it works when your brain is missing certain receptors or not producing enough of certain chemicals. I'm sure motivation helps, but it needs something to build on. The people I know who are functioning well despite schizophrenia or depression or bipolar or whatever benefit from a combination of good medication and a solid support network. The latter is implied in the film (where would he be without his wife's decision to keep him out of the hospital or his old school chum's assistance in reconnecting to the university community?), but takes a definite backseat to the more dramatic theme of one man's struggle to succeed.