Inspired

Inspired is about anything music that holds personal meaning to the listener, especially for emotional reasons that inspire positive hope and outlook.

In this edition of Inspired, my inspiration is "Nash Descends into Parcher's World" as a musical composition for the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind.

A Beautiful Mind is a biographical drama about John Nash - a Nobel Prize recipient in Economics as well as the winner of the Abel Prize (Norwegian prize awarded annually to one or more outstanding mathematicians ... Modeled after the Nobel Prizes).  The core of the film is the real life portrayal of Nash's descent into paranoid schizophrenia and delusional episodes.

On a positive note, A Beautiful Mind won four Academy Awards - Best Picture, Best Director (Ron Howard), Best Adapted Screenplay (Sylvia Nasar's 1998 A Beautiful Mind book), and Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly).  The film was nominated for Best Original Score, Best Makeup, Best Film Editing, and Best Actor (strongly controversial when Russell Crowe, who was slated to win for his portrayal of John Nash, was passed on at the Oscars).  

The film received four nominations and two wins at the BAFTA Awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts).  Russell Crowe won Best Actor and Jennifer Connelly won Best Supporting Actress.

The film received two nominations and four wins at the Golden Globe Awards (Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress).

Best Original Score by James Horner was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Of the many supporting roles in the movie, two stand out the most - Ed Harris and Paul Bettany.  Their characters were delusions in Nash's schizophrenic mind...especially with his interactions with Ed Harris's character, William Parcher.

(Wikipedia)

"The beauty of mathematics" was inspired by the idea of a kaleidoscope.  Inspired...

I am not schizophrenic.  I am not delusional.  I am, however, epileptic by psychiatric definition.  I have Temporal Lobe Seizure Disorder - tapping into the portion of the brain that controls emotions.  Aside from depression and mania, I can easily swing into devastating rage that first became evident when I was six years old.  I was diagnosed in 2004, just shy of my 21st birthday.  The stretch of time truly was risky.

"Nash Descends into Parcher's World" is not necessarily inspirational in a positive sense, but the darkness he fell into is darkness that I can relate to with regards to painful depression, multiple psychiatric ward admissions, and attempts.

"Parcher" was very real to the ill mind, whether schizophrenic or epileptic.  

An ill mind for life.

"Nash Descends into Parcher's World" - Inspired