Mini-Cast #6: Proof - Too Long

Proof is a play that knows nothing about math and everything about mental illness. In Proof, math is just what Alfred Hitchcock would call the 'MacGuffin', which he defined as the device that sets the plot in motion, and it doesn't matter a dime what that plot device is and can therefore be anything at all. Proof barely mentions math, it shows barely any understanding or atmosphere of the higher level math it's supposed to be portraying, it might as well be about chess or music or even sports.

I don't know much about higher level mathematics either. The last successful math I ever learned was when I was three years old, when my grandfather quite literally taught me algebra, and I have never truly learned any math at a higher level since then. If Proof had even mentioned math except in passing, they could have put it right by me and I likely would believe anything they told me about it. But Proof barely even makes an effort - a couple mathematical anecdotes, and that's it.

Higher level math is not so essential a subject to most of humanity that there need to be great works of art about it. But insofar as there is a great play about math, just about everybody agrees that it's Copenhagen by Michael Frayn, which is technically about nuclear and theoretical physics. It recreates the mid-WWII meeting outside of Copenhagen between the world's second and third most famous nuclear physicists: the half-Jewish Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, Bohr's former assistant who became head of the Nazi nuclear program. The uncertainty of what they discussed in their meeting is a mirror of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that atoms and electrons are so small that they cannot be observed in their natural state because the mere presence of light will change their position and movement. The principle itself becomes a metaphor for their relationship's uncertainty, their memory's uncertainty, our uncertainty at what they spoke of, our uncertainty at the lived experience of World War II, for the uncertainty of war, for their uncertain positions in a totalitarian society, and for the uncertainty of being itself.

I don't even think the majority of the characters in Proof have a last name, let alone do we ever know the discoveries of Proof's mathematicians. At the center of the story is the relationship between a father and a daughter - the father clearly both a genius and insane, the daughter possibly both as well. Clearly, the father, Robert, is modeled on John Nash, the Nobel winning mathematician who developed schizophrenia, and whose story was popularized in A Beautiful Mind. I hated that movie, I just loathed it, but even A Beautiful Mind tried to explain Nash Equilibrium - though according to mathematicians, they made a complete hash of Nash.

But as a case study of mental illness, Proof is one of the most convincing I've ever seen, and unlike math, I'm unfortunately in a position to observe its veracity with extreme expertise. I'm sure we will get into the reasons why as this podcast goes on.

The vagaries of a disturbed mind are further compounded by the vagaries of human behavior surrounding the mind's personhood. A mentally disturbed mind, whose thoughts are already compounded by delusions mental and emotional, is forced to contend with the behaviors of the people trying to deal with them, whose true motives can never be ascertained, and it is self-evident that there's no one in a worse place to understand the motives of others than a person who is already beset by delusions. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that everybody isn't out to get you, and even the motives of those who love the mentally ill most will always be compounded with certain resentments, doubts, and exploitations. And still further, the vast majority of the mentally disturbed will be disturbed in such a way that they view their life's developments with excess negativity rather than positivity, so the petty betrayals that comprise our loved ones at their worst will inevitably be exaggerated by our disturbed brains.

I'm not sure that I have ever seen a more admirable artistic description of this process than Proof, where the vagaries of family and romance wear a person down until they resolve that they must live with as few attachments as possible, because asking any more of life seems as though it will inevitably result in a terribly visceral cocktail of grief and terror that may last every day for months, years, even decades.

The obverse side to the uncertainties of mental illness is the now unfashionable notion that the  tornado of mental overactivity in the mentally ill can result in leaps of creativity which more stable types of people regard as otherworldly. Even though today's occupants of the life of the mind seem as or more dissatisfied with their lots than ever before, few notions in today's artistic community are more disparaged than the idea that suffering is a necessary part of an artist's inspiration and preparation.

And of course, these artists have an enormously important point. The idea of the 'suffering' artist is an argument eternally used by many non-creative people to keep the artists among them in squalor. It is, at its heart, little different from the quote from the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." This is the millennia-old justification used to keep the Christian masses suffering while the priestly class accumulates all the knowledge and wealth for themselves.

So let me conclude by positing a very different theory of the suffering artist, not an original one though I don't know its origin: The suffering of an artist is not what creates great art, the motive for creating great art is often to create a distraction from suffering. The easiest way to get rid of a destructive obsession is to find a constructive obsession, and few people but someone already in pain would take upon themself the masochism it takes to master a perilously difficult task.

Psychologists sometimes speak of phenomenon they call 'depressive realism,' meaning that depressed people, free from positive delusions, often see the world more accurately. Once again, that strikes me as ass-backward. If the depressed, or the mentally ill generally, see parts of the world more accurately, perhaps it's because their brains are wired excessively well for that particular realm of mental reasoning to the detriment of other realms. The obsession required for a brain to more accurately perceive parts of the world can mean that other areas of perception go to seed, and the lack of perception in other areas can severely damage a person's life circumstances.

No matter how many times they tell you otherwise, creative people are different than you, and a large part of your legacy is how you deal with the different among you, and the closest people to you who are obviously different are creative people. And they, more than anyone else, will be the ones who can render judgement of your lives for posterity. So be nice to the creative types in your life, whether deliberately or accidentally, they can render all manner of creative means for ironic punishment.