If any of you are film fanatics, math maniacs, or just keep up with news, you may know that on May 23rd, renowned mathematician John Nash and his wife passed away in car crash in New Jersey. During his time, he made enormous contributions to the fields of mathematics and economics. One of his better known inputs was the Game Theory, but you can research this idea on your own.
Through out his life, Nash experienced many memorable twists and turns, the most publicly significant curve was his diagnosis with paranoid schizophrenia in 1959. Though this disability did add some interest to his life, he accredits it to his earlier non-conformist ways of thinking, which led to some of his early achievements. During periods of superficial conversion to normal thinking, he perceived his thought processes as limited, though he does admit to succeeding “in doing some respectable mathematical research" throughout them.
John Nash was given an upper hand in that he had a dizzyingly amazing mathematical ability, which when paired with his determination, work ethic, and the incredible opportunities his family provided for him, eventually brought him to the front door of Princeton University.
All of us have gifts, though some of us may not know what they are quite yet. The strength of these gifts depends on the type and amount of nurturing and care that we give to them. Nash had his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood filled with experiences focused on enriching his gift. Not only that, but he actively worked at growing them.
Something else for us to keep in mind is that even though he didn't know he had paranoid schizophrenia, but he was still affected by it, and through its effects he accomplished incredible things. Even after diagnoses he continued conducting research and created even more new and useful ideas. The most important thing that Nash left to the world is a lesson: we all have challenges in our lives and we can either choose to view them as a roadblock or see them as a part of us, a part that allows us to approach the world in a way that it has yet to be seen.
“In a dream it's typical not to be rational." - John Forbes Nash, Jr.
