How physicist with life-threatening ALS inspired Hollywood
Eddie Redmayne, winner of the Best Actor in a Leading Role Award for “The Theory of Everything”, poses in the press room during the 87th Oscars in Hollywood, California, last month. AFP PHOTO
What you need to know:
The movie that won an Oscar last month shows that anything is possible.
What does a celebrated physics professor; a best-selling author; a much revered public speaker and a paralysed man who can neither talk nor walk have in common?
They all describe the same man—Stephen Hawking. He is best known in the academic circles for his theories on black holes and the expanding universe.
But he is world famous among the popular folks for his amazing 1988, global bestseller— ‘‘A Brief History of Time’’ — where he tried to explain the notion of space and time in simple language that could be understood by ordinary folks devoid of the complex web of mathematical equations.
“The eventual goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe (the theory of everything)” he writes in the book.
That has been Mr Hawking’s life mission—one that he is still working on but also one in which he has made more strides to achieve than any other mortal aliv e today.
But Mr Hawking’s life is not simply defined by science. It is also defined by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease. He happens to be the world’s most famous patient living with ALS.
Have you ever heard of ALS? Well you should have. Matters ALS were trending on social media the latter part of last year.
This reminds me, there is sure genius in simplicity. This is probably the reason why one of the biggest and most effective ‘social issue’ awareness campaigns in 2014 was done by a not-for-profit organisation and accomplished with absolutely ‘zero marketing budget’.
The idea was, you got filmed having an ice cold bucket of water being poured over your head and thereafter you nominated three people to accept the ‘challenge’.
You then uploaded the video on YouTube or any other social media platform that those invited could see it. A common stipulation is that nominated participants would have 24 hours to comply or forfeit by way of a charitable financial donation to the ALS Association.
The ALS Association is an American non-profit organisation that raises money for research and patient services, promotes awareness about and advocates on issues related to ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or motor neurone disease.
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in the spinal cord limits the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost.
With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralysed. Patients take an average of two to four years to succumb to the disease.
Besides the fact that the ice water challenge became a YouTube sensation and a social media trending phenomena, it achieved two major things.
One is that it managed to raise over $100 million (Sh9.1 billion) for the ALS Association. But secondly, is that it created an unprecedented amount of awareness about the ALS disease, albeit in passing.
Of course, there was always criticism from some that the challenge was too trivial an exercise and that the participants did not end up being aware about just how ALS, nice sounding as it may seem, was such a debilitating disease.
That being said, 2014 turned up to be, on reflection, a doubly good year for the ALS Association.
While it had planned and properly executed the ice bucket challenge campaign, the ALS Association was not in any way involved in the unrelated developments that were happening in Hollywood.
The story of the most famous ALS patient in the world was finally being released onto the silver screen and with it, a two-hour portrayal of the disease that no ice bucket challenge in the world would ever manage.
The film, ‘‘The Theory of Everything’’, was brought to the limelight when the lead actor in the biopic, Briton Eddie Redmayne, won the category for the best actor is a leading role in the Oscars awards held a fortnight ago.
The motion picture is a rendition of the true story of probably one of the greatest minds alive today. No other film I have watched in the recent past best brings out the endurance of the human spirit more befittingly.
Indeed, it a cinema portrayal of the tenacity of the human spirit to make everything (and indeed anything) possible.
Stephen Hawking, then still a Cambridge student, was only 21 when he received an earth-shattering diagnosis — that he had ALS with the doctors giving him a maximum of two years to live.
He is still alive— 52 years later! But Hawking’s amazing story is not simply good because he has lived far longer than anyone ever predicted.
Although he has defied expectations to live this long, the sacrifices his body has had to go through have been more than excruciating. The disease destroyed him inch by inch, rendering him physically incapacitated to an almost a vegetable.
His story is amazing because in his condition, he has accomplished what many , fully healthy and able humans would only dream of achieving.
He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk he couldn’t move his arms to write—yet he would end up earning a doctoral degree in one of the most challenging academic arenas, lecture in some of the most established universities in the world and become a world renowned best-selling author.
He could even be a knight if only he don’t so publicly reject the offer!
Hawking remains fiercely independent and unwilling to make concessions for what many may presume to be his disabilities.
He has always preferred to be regarded as “a scientist first, popular science writer second, and, in all the ways that matter, a normal human being with the same desires, drives, dreams, and ambitions as the next person.”
I couldn’t think of a man more deserving of Hollywood recognition.
Whatever circumstances you may be facing, watching this movie is going to help you open up mind on just how much more is possible in this brief journey called life.
The theory of everything, it turn out, is that everything is possible!
