Doctor Different
This story (based on a true-life account) is about a man named Hunter “Patch” Adams who, through a series of events in his life, becomes horribly depressed and suicidal. This leads him to “check in” to a psychiatric hospital, which he never guessed would serve to be the single pivotal event that would change the entire course of his life. The people Patch meets there help him realize his passion: healing people through humor and laughter. This convinces him to become a doctor, and so he goes to medical school.
The movie follows Patch on his journey through medical school, his triumphs and seeming defeats.
The movie opens with depressing monologue – something about life and getting lost in the snow, yadda yadda yadda. Is it not interesting that human beings can be creative even when they are depressed, moaning, groaning, and grumbling? I mean, this guy was drawing analogies and painting vivid pictures of exactly how depressed he was – things do not get much more creative than that, I reckon.
But, you may ask, what has all this really got to do with creativity? I’ll be the first to admit, that was what ran through my mind when I started out. I mean come on, a movie is a movie: a movie by any other name would… still be a movie. Right?
Well, kinda right, but not quite. You see, what I began to see through the length of the movie was that this was REAL. Not because it was based on a true story; no, but because love, death, passion, dreams, vision, discouragement, depression – these are very real things that happen to very real people.
And this is why I suppose true stories inspire us so – their heroes are not of the swash buckling, oversized-body-to-match-an-oversized-ego, “come with me if you want to live” variety that make you want to snort, roll your eyes and say “pffftttttt” all at once. No, these heroes are real people who are living in the fullness of reality – going through real life and experiencing real pain.
Patch was one of those. Each season of Patch’s life was so vastly different – yet each one so full of reality. As he moved from severe depression to inspired passion to falling deliriously in love, then to depression and hopelessness again, and finally to triumph, Patch proved again and again that he was an overcomer. With every obstacle that threw itself at him, Patch found his own way to barrel through it, and in so doing, discovered, with each victory, a little more of who he was.
And so we are inspired by people like Patch, who are mere humans and yet able to rise above their situations and see what others around them cannot. Patch lived in the midst of real-life issues, yet was neither shaped nor defined by these circumstances. Rather, he changed his circumstance and his situation by facing them head on with unconventional methods unique to his personality.
Patch lived life. His brand of creativity seems to be authentic; it certainly entails heaps of courage and deep conviction about something!
You want to know why inspirational stories inspire? Simply this: their heroes always point to something higher and bigger than themselves (kinda blows the whole “I’m human but my forefather was an ape” theory right out the window huh?).
That is the beauty of creativity – it is bigger than situation and circumstance. Even the manner in which creativity manifests itself in each individual is creative! No two people look at a situation the exact same way with the exact same responses.
Out of this arises a question which will not, indeed cannot, be answered here, for this is a question that each person must desire to ask, and to find the answer: If a human being has the ability to be that creative, and still has untapped potential for much more creativity, what does that reflect on the One who created us?
