Pontius Pilate sufferig from migraine in Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (movie)
I happen to suffer from migraines: pretty much every weekend (either
Saturday, or Sunday, or even both days) I want to kill myself. I
can’t think, I can’t concentrate, I can’t even watch some stupid TV-show, I
spend most of my day sleeping and actively suffering. Also, I take tons of
painkillers that don’t help anyway until the day is over.
Feeling really upset about wasting my weekends like this (in bed and
almost crying), I started asking myself a question: how did other people deal
with migraines in the past? In fact, many famous scientists, writers, artists, and world
leaders had this kind of unbearable headache throughout their life: Julius
Caesar, Alexander the Great, Edgar Poe, Charles Darwin, Ludwig van Beethoven,
Karl Marx, Alfred Nobel, etc. Despite of severe pain and obstructed vision that it caused,
these people succeeded to change the world’s views, to rule the empire, to
create genius books and most beautiful music. It’s known for a fact that even
while having strong migraines, Michael Bulgakov was not only writing his novels
but even created the most colorful and accurate description of the migraine
spasm in his famous novel ‘Master and Margarita’. Vincent van Gogh created some
of his most outstanding masterpieces exactly during his schizophrenic attacks. Ludwig
van Beethoven couldn’t hear a sound, but kept writing his stunning music full
of harmony and love. These people transformed their diseases into the art!
How strong do you need to be psychologically to not only overcome the pulsating
pain and physical exhaustion, but to create something so beautiful and genius?
Okay, you might say – come on, these people didn’t have this crazy
technological progress and world swirling around in the unbearably fast pace, that
puts so much stress and pressure on us today. But on the other hand, many
famous artists lived in a total poverty, without being able to sell or have their
works recognized. That’s quite a pressure when you have nothing to eat, isn’t
it?
Maybe, that is actually the root of the problem. In their time, there wasn’t
many ways to fight the disease: you either ‘suck it up’ and keep doing your
work, or you die. Nowadays, we have many painkillers to shut up the disease,
spa and psychiatrists to relief the stress, and so much pity for ourselves that
we give up on creating something meaningful as soon as we start feeling a
little ‘under weather’. In spite of having all these means, we suffer from mild depressions, stress-caused headaches,
problems with sleeping and eating, but most importantly, from being weakened by
the comfort of the new world.
How do we get strong, determined and effective again, to be able to
change the world to better even when our world is full of pain? How do we stop
being constantly tired and start creating?
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