Why do serious illnesses or accidents have this ability, frequently, to straighten the mind, to make it resume its proper functioning?
The temporal dimension of the person reappears. Instead of being a perpetual present in the process of succeeding one another, existence once again provides it with a beginning, middle and end. The mind, lazily impasto of its habits, distributing soothing opinions on its daily failures, suddenly discovers that over time the diagnosis has taken an ugly turn.
No matter how serious the disease is, how likely it is to survive. Whether the storm has passed (heart attack) or to come (incurable cancer), the mind realizes that it is the main actor and that it now has a beautiful finale to write. At least for those who are still interested in spectators, the first being oneself. The screenwriter will not hear the comments after the last frame, but likes to guess that they will say “It was a beautiful movie!”.
Even if he tells missed and debacles? Of course. A beautiful ending has all the more strength as the beginning was tragic.
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