Chabon on Berkeley
Aug. 23rd, 2004 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weaktwosI was reminded of the issue of MIT and depression that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellinator brought up the other day when I read this passage.
Berkeley.
Where passion is married to intelligence, you may find genius, neurosis, madness or rapture. None of these is really an unfamiliar presence in the tree-lined streets of Berkeley, California. For a city of one hundred thousand people -- toss in another thirty thousand to account for the transient population of the University -- we have more than our share of geniuses. The town, to be honest, is lousy with them. Folklorists, chefs, tattoo artists, yogis, guitarists, biologists of the housefly, GUI theorists, modern masters of algebra, Greil Marcus; we have geniuses in every field and discipline. As for neurosis, you can pretty much start at my house and work your way outward in any direction. Obsession, fixation, phobia, hypochondriasis, self-flagellation, compulsive confession of weakness and wrongdoing, repetition mania, chronic recrimination and second-guessing -- from parents of toddlers, to fanatical collectors of wax recordings of Turkish klezmer bands of the 1920s to non-eaters of anything white or which respires, to that august tribunal of neurosis, the Berkeley City Council...
--Michael Chabon, from My California
Me and my many personalities reached a consensus that even if an organization like MIT were to try to recruit to avoid psychological disorders, the process is futile. Universities are a draw for folks who are more likely to be prone to a disorder of some sort. Usually, those folks are fairly intelligent.
Someone discussed the issue of there being a "stigma" attached to mental illness. Well, I think there's a stigma to just about everything. A stigma for being fat, a stigma for being ugly, a stigma for being stupid, a stigma for not having the right views/opinions. Sometimes I think stigmas are what we make of it.
And frankly, I don't think there should be any stigmas associated with mental illness. After all, aren't at least 33% of us nuts in some capacity? And that's mainly because the other 67% don't think like us. And lately, I wonder if those numbers are increasing.
Maybe there needs to be a Nutjob Pride festival (or several of them). The Control Freaks can organize it, the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder folks can clean up after it. The paranoid schizophrenics can take care of security. Or something like that.
kellinator brought up the other day when I read this passage.Berkeley.
Where passion is married to intelligence, you may find genius, neurosis, madness or rapture. None of these is really an unfamiliar presence in the tree-lined streets of Berkeley, California. For a city of one hundred thousand people -- toss in another thirty thousand to account for the transient population of the University -- we have more than our share of geniuses. The town, to be honest, is lousy with them. Folklorists, chefs, tattoo artists, yogis, guitarists, biologists of the housefly, GUI theorists, modern masters of algebra, Greil Marcus; we have geniuses in every field and discipline. As for neurosis, you can pretty much start at my house and work your way outward in any direction. Obsession, fixation, phobia, hypochondriasis, self-flagellation, compulsive confession of weakness and wrongdoing, repetition mania, chronic recrimination and second-guessing -- from parents of toddlers, to fanatical collectors of wax recordings of Turkish klezmer bands of the 1920s to non-eaters of anything white or which respires, to that august tribunal of neurosis, the Berkeley City Council...
--Michael Chabon, from My California
Me and my many personalities reached a consensus that even if an organization like MIT were to try to recruit to avoid psychological disorders, the process is futile. Universities are a draw for folks who are more likely to be prone to a disorder of some sort. Usually, those folks are fairly intelligent.
Someone discussed the issue of there being a "stigma" attached to mental illness. Well, I think there's a stigma to just about everything. A stigma for being fat, a stigma for being ugly, a stigma for being stupid, a stigma for not having the right views/opinions. Sometimes I think stigmas are what we make of it.
And frankly, I don't think there should be any stigmas associated with mental illness. After all, aren't at least 33% of us nuts in some capacity? And that's mainly because the other 67% don't think like us. And lately, I wonder if those numbers are increasing.
Maybe there needs to be a Nutjob Pride festival (or several of them). The Control Freaks can organize it, the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder folks can clean up after it. The paranoid schizophrenics can take care of security. Or something like that.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 05:58 pm (UTC)But hey, nobody is perfect. We're all glaringly imperfect. What matters is how we make the best of what we have. So, if someone tries to judge you based on a stigma, don't let 'em. And don't let it make you feel any less than.
Getting stuck with poor mental health bites in a big way, but you need to accept it and work with it, not be ashamed of it.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-23 03:46 pm (UTC)You mean like the How Berkeley Can You Be Parade (http://www.howberkeleycanyoube.com/)? Cause it's usually full of nutjobs.