Points of Interest, vol. 2 #4

In an effort to return to a regular weekend schedule, I present the creme de la creme of my web browsing put together in a mere five days time, and still overflowing with thoughtful, touching, funny and poignant goodness.  Today I have peer support, intuition, schizophrenia, salience, religiosity, spirituality, diet soda, cotton candy, and a bunch of other vaguely defined subjects.  So pull up a chair, sit down and dig in to the absolute best I could find on the internet-

Points of Interest, #41

And now, the moment you have been waiting for all week.  No– not that moment.  It is the moment when yours truly presents the best, the brightest, the most informative, interesting, and entertaining of my sojourn on the internet.  Today I have gratitude, no worries, losing recognition of our own face, the God of the future, marrying biblical sisters, Scrubs and the end of life, and a football team without a home field, and eloping six year olds, amongst a lot of other really, really good stuff.  So dig in and enjoy the best of the internet (I could find)-

Points of interest, #37

Welcome one and all to an irregular installment of my irregularly irregular collection of the very best of all things mind, soul, and body on the internet (That I could find, anyway).  Today I have Mormons and basketball, Pygmy Tarsiers, Mogwai, kilobunnies and kilorats, the spirituality of chess, and husbands in the doghouse to help heal your social phobia, ADHD, Bipolar, Depression, amnesia, self harm, or whatever else it is you are in need of.  So here is all I got…

It isn’t good to be alone

     When I was in medical school, I was treated by my wife to a fascinating and gripping performance by Tom Hanks in the movie, castaway.  While I can’t say the movie was profound or life changing, I found its depiction of isolation and loneliness was quite powerful.  In the movie, Tom Hanks works for FedEx, where the plane he is riding crashes into the ocean.  He is the sole survivor marooned on an Island. 

     It is a very basic man vs. Nature plot, as he creates fire, steps on bad things, hurts his hand, bleeds, has a basic cavity volcano into a horrific abcess in the absence of a dentist, etc. al etc.  In the midst of all this, washing up on the shore of the Island with him are a few FedEx packages, one of which containing Wilson volleyball.  It happens to be nearby when he mauls his hand in a firemaking attempt and he smears blood on it.  A little later he fashions the stain into a face, cleverly calling it by the moniker splayed across the ball itself, Wilson. 

     The amazing part of the movie is that as Hanks feels more and more isolated, he anthropomorphizes the ball more and more.  He converses with it throughout the movie as a friend and confidant.  After some years, he escapes the Island on a makeshift raft, Wilson in tow.  As he sleeps, the ball falls off the raft and floats away.  Hanks is besides himself, grief stricken, and forlorn, and wails pitifully for the return of Wilson.  The audience themselves (well me, anyway)  experience this surprising sense of loss as well.  We grieve as He grieves.  Thus, the intrinsic human need for other human contact is put on bright display.  It is a need so powerful that in its absence we will create it out of contact with the inhuman, even the inanimate.  It turns out humans have a basic need for each other. 

Castaway, the story of a plane wreck survivor and the volleyball he loved. (now that's lonely)