The movie Blade Runner (the original, not the sequel, please) is about a dystopian future, including cyborgs, fleshy robots that act and appear fully human. These "living" beings are confined to outer space: spaceships, other planets, moons. But, having minds and desires of their own, some of them break the rules and come down to Earth. Harrison Ford is a blade runner, whose job it is to hunt down and kill these invaders. (I was going to write "illegal aliens.")
At the climax of the movie, on a grimy rooftop in the rain, a terrified Harrison Ford listens to a cyborg, who having reached his factory-programmed expiration date, is dying. Even here, out of context, you can feel the pathos of this "tears in rain" monologue:
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched Sea Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
In a recent article I wrote about how our vastly expanded internet-based media has changed our perception of the world. For example, a globalist perspective puts us Westerners at a disadvantage when trying to understand the clannishness and tribalism that is still the basis of Middle Eastern culture. Rootless cosmopolitans, we are also at a disadvantage when trying to understand our own clannishness and tribalism.
I wrote how exposure to world-class celebrity and the economic elite makes us dissatisfied with the boy or girl next door; how too many choices creates dissatisfaction. And I wondered, living here in my "golden years," suffering or benefiting from the choices I made when younger, how different things might have been if I had made wiser earlier decisions.
"I could have been a contender."
- A Streetcar Named Desire
Don't get me wrong; the game's not over; I'm still swinging. Perhaps making up for a certain complacency (lack of application) that I allowed myself in earlier decades, I'm now at it day and night... publishing.
In this, my publishing, I am buoyed up, emotionally and practically, by the great authors who contribute (some more regularly than others) to this magazine. I don't have a favorite among them, but for depth and frequency Philip Gambone stands out.
An honored author, whose book reviews regularly appeared in the New York Times for over a decade, Phil also taught creative and expository writing at Harvard for twenty-eight years. If that doesn't actually place him in the literary big-time, it certainly qualifies him to comment on it. So, it was a real shot in the arm for me, when, along with one of his recent bi-weekly submissions, he wrote: "You're turning out a great on-line journal!"
Then, even more recently, after reading my article considering my youthful lack of diligence, he wrote again:
David—
Blake said, "He who would do good must do it in minute particulars." That’s exactly what you're doing. Forget about chasing the big boys. Most of them are soulless.
—Phil
Like the cyborg in "Blade Runner," I could make my own "tears in rain" speech. Most immediately it would focus on the time I spent living in the least populated corner of the least populated state in the Union, Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. There among the hippies and artists, who back in the day went back "to the garden," and the farmers (dairy and sheep) who never left, there is still a strong "Live and let live" ethos. This core value of tolerance and pluralism (diversity) is the chief gift of Western civilization to the world, whether or not other cultures accept that gift.
Except for Burlington (where over 90% of the state's population resides) predatory capitalism hasn't arrived in the Green Mountain State. This is because the rest of Vermont is poor; there is no money.
Living there, sparsely placed as we were, the sense of neighborliness was strong. If you needed or were needed by your neighbor, the response was guaranteed. Government was minimal. Self-reliance was the rule, even if self includes the guy or gal down the road and over the hill. It was still the rural ideal that Jefferson prized. For me it is an outpost of the real America.
God willing, I'm turning 68 this week. And really, I have no regret at not joining the system. I'm happy that, like a modern-day Diogenes, I've maintained my independent point of view. And really, writing articles and publishing (an event calendar, magazine, community wall, and three very popular newsletters each week) in the world's "best small city" is not a bad fate for a very wordy "older" man.
Blake's comment about the "minute particulars" makes me think about the Buddhist adage "Ordinary consciousness is Enlightenment." The main thing I had in Vermont, up the mountain, one half mile past the end of the dirt road, in my cabin surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of forest was quiet. Like Thoreau at Walden, I was away from society. There minute particulars became clear, fundamentals were apparent, ordinary mind emerged.
Happy birthday to me.
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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.
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