Hey there guys,
I am starting this blog because I accidentally deleted my old one when I got rid of my old email address (thanks again to the hacker in Ukraine for making that necessary). Thinking back on my old blog, I think I tried way too hard to be cool and didn't put enough of myself in there. I expressed only the "deeper thoughts" that I thought would be the most impressive. I realized this was stupid. What is the point of trying to be impressive? The people who read this stuff are most likely the people who know me fairly well. These people well enough to know that if I become an exalted celestial being, (I am LDS) I want to make unicorns real and some make people magic. Hogwarts can be real!!! Seriously, not the deepest stuff. So I am going to to try and just write informally about the normal parts of my life, things I find interesting, and if there is incidental depth, I assure you it is not premeditated.
So with that preamble I would like to talk about the 'Silver Linings Playbook'. I Checked it out from the local library and devoured it this last weekend. I had previously seen an edited copy of the movie that just came out, and I have to say the book is obviously the superior version of the two. I won't go into the details of the book to avoid spoiling it for anyone interested in perusing it for themselves. I will simply say that Mathew Quick does an amazing job in creating deeply flawed, depressed, and disturbed characters. If you are easily offended by vulgar language, frightened by descriptions of hallucinations, or disturbed by mental illness in general: this book is not for you. As a psych major, I was riveted by the getting a look into the minds people with mental illnesses that, despite all of my study, I will never fully understand.
I was moved by the way the main character Pat tried so had to find the silver linings in the dysfunctional world in which he lives, even to the point delusional dysfunction. Though Pat's positivity was unrealistic and had a slightly damaging effect on his social life, his hope was encouraging and even beautiful. Something that one must understand about the mentally ill is that despite the problems that they have that may sometimes seem frightening or confusing, there is this odd beauty about them. They can see and appreciate things and people that "normal" people take for granted. They have to try so hard sometimes to get out of bed and make it trough the day that their triumphs and successes truly merit the deepest meanings of those words. I feel like the world gets so hung up on words like bipolar, depression, or unstable that they cannot see past them and lose the opportunity to get to know thee people. As I read Pat's journal I saw the beauty mixed in with his problems, and came to admire his dedication to improving himself and his life.
WARNING SMALL SPOILER: Perhaps my favorite part of the book is when Pat is talking to his therapist about Silvia Plath's 'The Bell Jar.' Pat, the eternal optimist, becomes very upset by the fact that there is no silver lining to this book. He rants to his therapist that this is a horrible book and that making anyone, especially children, read it is cruel and promoting pessimism. His therapist explains that it is important to make children read books like that to prepare them for the real world, and to teach them compassion for those whose lives are worse than their own. I and my siblings have often discussed the horribly depressing nature the books that were assigned to us in our public school years with similar dislike. I personally hated Earnest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea' when I was forced to read it in high school and I am still not compelled to reread it. The explanation given by Mathew Quick in this book makes me think back on the depressing novels of my middle school and high school years so differently. To learn compassion is to become truly enlightened. Perhaps public schools are teaching something useful after all.
Well that ended up being much longer than I had intended it to be. I hope you enjoyed my random thoughts on this awesome book. Have a great day.
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