The insane process of choosing between urgent and important

IN MARTIN Scorsese's psychological thriller "Shutter Island" (2010), US Marshall Teddy Daniels (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) is tasked to find an escaped patient from an asylum for the criminally insane on an isolated, remote and windswept island. If there's one enigmatic lesson to learn from the blockbuster movie, it comes from Daniels' final line: "Which would be worse: To live as a monster, or to die as a good man?"

Some of you may be tempted to talk about it as a political question given the state of governance in this country. It's up to you. Whatever, the film reminds us that it has become easy for many of us to deny, even forget, terrible things without knowing them as a proof of insanity. This makes it harder for the next criminally insane person to find logic in what they're doing, at least in the long term.