We watched the movie, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," last night. It is haunting, the tale of a man, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in his early forties, has a massive stroke that leaves him completely paralyzed, save for the movement of his left eye, but fully capable mentally, a condition known as "locked-in syndrome." Much of the filming is from his point of view, envisioned through the perspective of his one functioning eye. This works fairly well to force us to understand just how profound a transformation his disability is for him.
The title describes how he experiences his condition. On the one hand, his body is weighted down and isolated from the moving world. He thus feels like he is encased in an old heavy diving suit ("scaphandre" in French), drifting slowly downward underwater, unable to control himself, incapable of ascent or propulsion or physical interaction. He adapts, however, through his imagination and memory - these are the butterfly of the title. With his mind he can travel anywhere, do anything, move anytime. His inner voice and eyes give rise to his narrative, the book that he writes (by an ingenious system of blinking his one eye to signal which letter an assistant should record). The story allows him to transcend, or move through, his paralysis. Whatever the flaws of the movie in dramatizing the book, it is a bracing presentation.
And it makes me think of Chuang Tzu. First, and most obviously, any time I encounter a butterfly metaphor, I think of the famous Chuang Tzu butterfly dream story:
Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a f1uttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.
Now, I imagine that when Bauby awoke from his dreams he was confronted rather abruptly with his own reality. Little chance of mistaking his life in a rehabilitation hospital for that of a butterfly. But his flights of imagination, rather like Chuang Tzu's dream, did give him moments of liberation and inspiration. They also may have opened a path to acceptance of his condition. That' the other Chuang Tzu angle here: the virtue of yielding to circumstance. Perhaps Bauby does not wholly yield (can any of us, really?) but he obviously adapted and wrote his book. And it's that kind of adaptation, when we face conditions of demise and disability, that Chuang Tzu highlights The character of Adept Cart, who comes down with a physically deforming illness, is asked if he resents his predicament, and Chuang Tzu has him respond:
"No, why should I resent it?" replied Adept Cart. "If my left arm's transformed into a rooster, I'll just go looking for night's end. If my right arm's transformed into a crossbow, I'll just go looking for owls to roast. And if my butt's transformed into a pair of wheels and my spirit's transformed into a horse, I'll just ride away! I'd never need a cart again!" (92)
The irreverence in that passage might have suited Baudy. It is something more than mere acceptance or adaptation. It is a celebration of whatever we become. And a reminder that there can be joy and freedom in what appears to be the most restrictive of disabilities....
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