KALTBLUT-HONK! 01 Schizoprenia

113
by Rochelle Lamanz
Schizophrenia. All we hear about
is delusions, hallucinations, people
covering stuff in foil to prevent alien
signals from reaching them, John
Nash freaking out at Princeton. Incidentally,
I knew someone who was a
student at Princeton around the time
Nash 'went crazy.'
But if you look at the symptoms, and what
they represent, in a way, it's beautiful. And the
nerds embrace it. Silver foil? My silver foil is
the things with which I surround myself to deflect
the hurtful gaze of society trying to look in
and try to tell me that I'm a freak for being who
I am, that I'm wrong and strange and weird for
liking what I like. My silver foil is the music
I listen to, the books I read, the people I love,
the scientific formulae that wrap me up and
cradle me and keep me safe.
If you smell things that aren't there, see things
that aren't there, hear things that are not uttered,
you're mad. In that case, you'd be in
good company. Rachmaninoff wrote the most
sublime piano concertos, Tchaikovsky's ballets
induce weeping, and Mozart must have heard
way too much that wasn't there.
My point is, all art, be it poetry, music, art,
sculpture, literature... it all came ex nihilo –
out of nothing. My point is that Rachmaninoff
heard something that had not previously
existed, and composed it into something that
reaffirms existence – I know I'm alive when
I hear the Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor.
All these nerds, the people who loved music
and art and science, they took something that
didn't exist, wasn't there, and they made it so
that it was there.
And as for delusions – the only delusion
we carry is that we don’t believe we’re good
enough for anything. We don’t see our true potential.
We’re scared of what we can achieve.
And other people get scared when they see our
potential, which is why they try to tell us not
to do something. It’s the geeks and nerds and
‘weird’ people are bullied – because they’re
not afraid to achieve, to create, to be who they
are!!
Celebrate your individuality.
And remember, it’s not necessarily that people
are against you. They’re just for themselves!! ●