John Nash and Me

I don't hallucinate. I don't think that people around me are all talking about me. I don't think that the people on my TV set can see me. I don't think that conspirators are trying to kill me with microwaves and fluoridated water. I don't think that everyone in the world is waiting with baited breath for the next "big thing" I say or do. I know that I am not Napoleon, Hitler, Jesus Christ, John Lennon, or Albert Einstein. I don't think I'm on a clandestine cloak-and-dagger mission for a secret government agency. I neither have an alternative memory of my life nor alternative personalities embedded within me. I don't think that people are following me or eavesdropping on everything I do or say.

Got all that? Good, now please don't call the folks in the white suits when you read what follows.

The personality of John Nash, as portrayed by Russell Crowe in the movie A Beautiful Mind, brings out a high degree of empathy from me. I understand this character, all of his mental illness notwithstanding (remember my first paragraph). For John Nash has a problem: handling the overwhelming, crushing nature of the world and the absurdly complex and manipulative nature of social interaction. Having this problem does not imply schizophrenia: I see it as a combination of two factors.

One, I am very sensitive to what goes on around me. I am painfully attuned with the emotions of those in my environment.

Two, I am much more sensitive to audio input coming in at me from multiple sources than are "normal" people. By that I mean that there are many crowded, bustling, and noisy situations where I can hardly contain the anxiety building up within me while the people around me actually seem almost ecstatic in the midst of this noise. It wasn't until I was well into adulthood before I realized this distinction between others and myself; I'm certain, though, that there are a few other kindred spirits out there who react to these situations as I do.

I can't say what the real John Nash was/is like; I never met him or read the book A Beautiful Mind. All I have to go on is the Ron Howard movie. But if what I've seen there is any clue to Nash's personality, then I can relate to his generally cynical regard for people, his suspicions about the motivations of others, and his tendency to severely judge himself according to standards that he expects no one else to live up to. The schizophrenic element to him and the way that Howard presented it in the movie made the movie more exciting, but it was the more subtle, sane characteristics of his personality that made the greatest impression on me in the long run. And I bet I'm not the only one who feels this way.