A beautiful mind

Months of hibernation has meant re-visiting some of my all-time favourite films. And this Oscar-winning movie – the title of my Ed’s letter – leaves me speechless on many counts.

One of my favourite dialogues from the film is actually this existential question that Russell Crowe’s character John Forbes Nash Jr., a celebrated mathematician who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, asks: ‘I’ve always believed in numbers, in equations, in logic and reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask, what truly is logic? Who decides reason?’

There are times when I feel our growth as a species lies in not looking for answers for questions such as these, but in finding that middle path in the quagmire of varied opinions. And as far as our growth as a community is concerned, I think it would boil down to how we deal with mental health issues – issues that quite often, just like Nash’s question, cannot be explained and do not follow a template. They just exist, either simmering in our subconscious or infesting our outlook with its acerbic darkness.

So how does one deal with it? In the movie, Nash offers an answer. He says, ‘It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.’

Nehal did just that (read her interview on page 8). New to the UAE and homesick, this 23-year-old executive decided to adopt a cat to fight off a persistent feeling of loneliness. No sooner, she realised her cat had adopted her, and in the process Nehal had not just found joy but purpose too.

While I agree that relying on love to be the scaffolding to our fractured mental state might seem to be an easy solution, there is no denying its healing powers.