A Humane Turtle

… should be consumed in moderation (“Everything in moderation, even moderation.”). Therefore, here’s my result for: What Classic Movie Are You?

I need to see this movie now..

So I went to the movies last night, without any expectations whatsoever. I only went along with the usual crowd, without having seen any trailer. I didn’t even remember what the title of the movie was when I arrived, only that it was supposed to be a good movie (judged by its IMDB rating, at least).

So I watched ‘Shutter Island’ last night.

The movie targets these questions: What is real? Which reality is the real one? Who is sick, who is trying to help, and who isn’t?  I find these questions highly interesting. My problem is just that they aren’t only interesting to me, I feel connected to them in a deeply emotional way.

When I was in my early teenage years, a close family member was diagnosed with Schizophrenia – and is still living with it today. It’s a fascinating condition in so many ways. First of all, you’re not supposed to talk about it: everybody knows, nobody talks. Second, the patients don’t necessarily agree to having it. It’s a mental disease after all. And third, both treating and not treating it will have an impact on the patients’ state of mind, but treating it might mean taking away power from them – something everybody of us would try to avoid at (almost) all cost. It’s a thin line really: when does a situation justify to take away powers of an otherwise free person, to do something to them that – despite the good will – isn’t what they want? How do we know that what we are trying to do is really any good? And who tells us, the involved outsiders, that we have the real reality on our side? Do we just think we do because our reality is close enough to average?

A lot of these thoughts and feelings I can sometimes only handle by locking them away in some shady corner of myself. The movie yesterday managed to break those locks. I’m not sure if that was good or bad.