Nothing 2

I am watching a science fiction film where a single astronaut is stranded in orbit over Earth with no radio communication with earthlings. Alone, he is told via a prerecorded message to which he cannot reply that there has been some mess on Earth since he left it and the necessary personnel to bring him out of orbit are unavailable for the indefinite future. The recording wishes him Godspeed.

By voice over I am told that if we humans are cut off and deprived of the ability to talk to anyone else our view of reality becomes very warped. Immediately, I am struck by the fact that the view of shared reality in society at present is very warped, anyway. So, might sanity actually be recaptured in solitude? We seem to have tried everything but what we most fear...being alone with only me; telling myself the truth; and yet, could there be a great surprise awaiting its own discovery? Something resilient? More importantly, something that unites all people in a profound enough way to end competition and war on Earth?

This lone astronaut is in a bad situation. It is like a Devil tells the first man and woman that the Real God is a fake. Sound familiar? Your parents, or some other adult may have told you such a story when you were too little to defend yourself. And that tale started trouble. And you have been complaining ever since.

If I were Satan would I not do the same? Of course, I would, and I did. I told it to myself. In the film, the voice over tells us we are listening to something warped of reality when everything else is silent. Now, this next part is so important, and yet, so difficult for you to hear. So, pay close attention...

so, I gotta thing to add and it is this: the real devil is a fake.

Who, in the final show, you gonna have to depend on? Mommy? You have an unsuspected resource. It is an innate ability. Know who you are.

That night I had a dream that I was a little boy. I was in bed in my room, lying on my tummy, under the covers, the lights were on and I could see plainly a very large spider, one bigger than me, on my bedroom wall. My mother was in the room with me and she was about to kill that spider when, suddenly, I turned to see another huge spider was crawling over my back on top of the covers. And a third one was crawling onto my uncovered head. Petrified in fear so strong I could not move, I screamed as loud as I could for my mommy to save me; but she seemed too busy chasing and swatting at the spider on the wall to pay attention to my outcry. When I awoke, I was completely safe.

Very soon, though, I was reminded of the film from the day before about the astronaut cut off in space from all the people on the Earth he had been depending upon to save him from harm and to return him safely to Earth. Hmmm. In some sense we are all aliens. Eventually, we each shall face that truth. We are depending on something to return us back home safely, but what? And where is home? And what are we doing here, lost in space?

I have depended upon many things in my life. First, my parents and family ties. As a young man, I depended upon a career, one of those where I am licensed by the government to do a line of work in great demand in which people have to pay me large sums of money to save them (which I cannot do); and a lovely wife and two healthy children (I cannot save); and a fine house in the burbs; and a couple of automobiles; and a bunch of close friends; and many colleagues in my field of expertise; and the laws of the country where I live; and the army and navy and marines and cops and doctors and insurance salesmen and retirement and social security benefits and expensive retirement homes; and my fear did not get better for me as time went by, but worse! And, I drank alcohol and smoked tobacco for relief. And, things got worse. And I drank more and smoked more; and, still, they got worse; and I drank and smoked more and more...until I found myself in a state worse than Hell, a place so bad it cannot be imagined; it has to be experienced for anyone to know the nature of this place I lived in...it is so bad...terror… outrage...terror...outrage...I wished for my death, and I was still young, and it would not come...

It is coming. We know it is coming.

Do we imagine that the things money can buy will save us then? Can it take us safely home? Money that buys politicians and educators and movie stars and rock stars and priests, is that going to save us? If so, like the voice over in that movie I watched I wish you Godspeed and success in your endeavors to obtain as much as you think you will need. Grab it fast. Yonder stands your orphan with his gun. If you are honest you will admit you are living as if that is your ultimate hope. In some way unexpressed I felt the isolated astronaut in the movie had been callously abandoned by the unreliable, unstable society of which he believes he is a member. And I further felt that because such a strategy so denies reality it had to happen that way.

For me, I am not counting on that. I am not, however, defenseless. I have been there, you see, and returned...safely...home. And now am writing these nothings for you... writing them for nothing...and counting on nothing to save us all. What is offered is a difficult quest by each individual, in solitude, now.

For me, it was a choice between a turning within and further preparation for another mad flight deeper into the abyss.