In the last two newsletters we have been discussing the movie A Beautiful Mind. It is based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel prize mathematician who struggled with paranoid schizophrenia.

Before jumping back into the story, I want to remind you again of the basic premise here, of the reason I write this newsletter on the meaning of story. It is to make the point, over and over again, that there is only one real and true story. It is God’s Story, in which we play a part.

God has always communicated to us through stories: His Story in the Bible which He inspired men to write, but also in our stories that most of us believe were written under our own inspiration. If my premise is true, there can only be one explanation – it is that we already know God’s story, the real story, deep down. We always have. When we sit down to write what is on our hearts . . . this is what comes out. We cannot help it. We cannot help but write it, over and over again.

And so, God has always been speaking to us through stories, but we have also been unconsciously speaking to ourselves – to clarify our greatest dilemma, and to lead us to the very best resolution.

We left off last time when John’s wife, Alicia, expresses her heart. John is delusional once again, believing he’s a top secret code breaker for the government. He wants to believe he can find the solution to his illness by thinking it through; somehow with his intellect he can leave the fantasy world for good and return to the real world. He has always relied on his mind for his purpose in life, but this problem is not only based in his thoughts.

Alicia and their baby son are not completely safe with John at home, but he wants to stay; he doesn’t want to be readmitted to the psychiatric hospital. Alicia agrees he can stay at home for the time being, but tells John she needs to believe something “extraordinary” can happen.

And then, she expresses the most incredible thing to him, by first touching his face with her hand, but then taking hold of his hand and touching her face, and then tugging his hand down to her heart. “This . . . is real,” she says. Not what is in either of their heads, not just their thoughts, but what is in the heart — her love for him. And in this way, she communicates that the problem, as well as the solution, is in the heart, not in his mind.

This turns out to be a breakthrough for John, for going forward he is always able to acknowledge the fact he is ill. He still hallucinates people who are not there, but he knows they are not real, and does his best to ignore them. In the past he was completely whisked away to this other reality and utterly lost in it. Years later he convinces one of his old classmates at Princeton, who is now the head of the Mathematics Department, to let him spend time in the library there and interact with students. As an older man, John is eventually able to teach.

John struggled a great deal to come up with his dissertation when he was a student, believing he needed to come up with a “truly original idea.” With schizophrenia, it is hard to believe he did much of anything, but he finally succeeded and came up with a theorem that was known as “Equilibrium.”

The theory ends up having so much impact in International Relations, Psychology and Economics, that as an elderly man, he is awarded the Nobel Prize. As ill as he was when he was younger, John was able to come up with something that was incredibly beneficial. If you’re interested in listening to an intelligible explanation of what Equilibrium is, you can view a video at this link.

For someone who was so self-absorbed and lost in his own head, it’s incredible that Equilibrium has to do with how different individuals interact with each other in a game, or business, or political summit — when they need to find a solution that mutually benefits everyone. This only happens when each participant is content with what they already have, doesn’t get greedy, and stays the course. It is a moral solution, spiritual even. The very same one that Alicia proposed to John, using different words: “I will sacrifice my life for you, if you are willing, as best you can, to do the same for me.”

And now, we come to the end of this “beautiful” story. I wish I could quote John’s words to Alicia as he addresses the crowd in Stockholm, Sweden as he is awarded the Nobel Prize, but copyright will not allow it. Please watch the movie and see it for yourself. It is simply one of most loving moments I have ever witnessed.

Paraphrasing, John says, he has always believed in math, numbers, logic and reason. But at the end of his life, he asks – “What is logic, and reason?” His journey took him many places; even to the delusional, and back. Finally, he made the most important discovery of his life –it is only in the “mysterious equations of love” that any logic exists. And then John looks to Alicia in the audience and says he is only on that podium because of her. She is the “reason” he is. And then he says, “You are all my reasons.”

And if you can watch this and not be moved, you may need to check and see if you have a heart.

For many years I have believed the essence of humanity is in the heart, not in the mind. Freud, as limited as his theories were without moral absolutes, even believed this, although he would have called these “motives.” I believe we have put far too much emphasis on our minds and on our thoughts. Don’t misunderstand me, our minds are extremely important, they even seem to be the location where most of our “life” happens and is experienced. We cannot understand anything without our minds, without the concepts in our heads, nor communicate without words that carry meaning.

But just as John Nash, discovered, the reason we are here, the reason we exist — can never be found in thoughts or logic. We exist because our Creator decided to create this universe and to place us in it. And His motive for creating, anything, had nothing to do with logic, but love. The only reason God ever created anything is because Perfect Love Himself wants creatures who can receive His love and love Him back. This is what gives Him joy. This and only this.

Next time,
Sam