There have been a lot of movies recently which challenge our sense of reality. "The Matrix" and "Vanilla Sky" come to mind, although there are many more. I believe that the best of these so far is "A Beautiful Mind", probably because it is far more plausible, down to earth and in fact is based on a true story.

(Please note that the following commentary includes details about the plot which you may not wish to read if you haven’t seen the movie.)

John Nash was a brilliant mind faced with the delusions of schizophrenia. For years he led a life based on associations with fantasy characters created by his delusions. He was institutionalized, treated and medicated to control the delusions, but the medication robbed him of his genius and what little social skill that he possessed. And so he made an amazing choice.

John Nash chose to ignore his hallucinations and, as he puts it, curtail certain of his appetites and habits. He goes through decades of his life with the delusions continuing, but coping with it through ignoring them and selecting where he wants to place his reality. From that choice comes a profound life lesson.

We all are in the same boat as John Nash. Perhaps we do not have to deal with it to the same degree by choosing which characters we accept into our reality, but we all project a map of reality onto our perceptions.  This map originates in the filters and presuppositions of our mind. We look at a situation or a character in our lives and choose to interpret it as devaluing, as betrayal or as a reason for jealousy, when in fact we cannot pretend to know the real reasons for something happening. In short, we are judgmental about our realities. We impose our own prejudices on our reality. We are all surrounded by as many delusions as a schizophrenic, though they are (most of the time) not as debilitating.

What John Nash has taught us is that it is important to live in the here and now, making ourselves the best person we can be and being ready to offer help when it is needed and/or requested. In order to do that, we may have to choose how we look at the world and to select what we are going to give significance. To paraphrase Dan MiIlman, a person who is plagued with self doubt can go through therapy, meditations, talks with bartenders, or many other things. Or they can just choose to ignore it. As they say, "Just do it!" It may remain. It may not, as John Nash shows us, be easy in the beginning. But if a schizophrenic can tune into the reality he chooses, it should be a revelation to the rest of us. Choosing which reality you want should not be exclusively for schizophrenics.