To add to the list of people whom I have decided to censure: people who describe themselves as ‘funloving’. This is the beginning of another rant. But let me be true to certain ideals.
A long time ago, I remember telling this person that the ‘aam junta’ (the ‘people’, the hoi polloi) should not, indeed must not be despised, for it is this junta from which greatness arises. Without the matrix around you, greatness would wither away in isolation. Note, at this point the condescension with which these words were said. As if the speaker himself stands head and shoulders above people around him. Quite far from it, in fact. This, I had said to one who, if anything happens to believe quite strongly that she stands head, shoulders and most of her quite delightful torso above the rest. Passing lightly over the aforementioned delightful torso (a delight, in itself), this person needed, and needs to this day a gentle reminder that greatness is indeed by comparison, and if it appears too easily within the grasp, then that is a tragedy, because the world is a simpler and less beautiful place than it could and should be.
At second glance, this rant is not a rant. Maybe I am too old to rant. Thinking that I am past the age where I should protest means that I have stopped breathing. And I am not even past my first quarter century! The mediocre must exist! Because without the contrast, achievement is not achievement. But must the mediocre be so mediocre? That is the question. Asimov, and Clarke, actually more Clarke than Asimov have dreamt of, and written of a time and a people where understanding was more than a pipe dream, where thought sat on the its rightful throne. But it appears to me that every such societal structure where thought rules and action lies subservient, must, by its very nature, be doomed to paralysis of the body, and by inevitable extension, paralysis of the soul. And that means extinction. And by the same coin, every race and people ruled by the men of strength teeters on the brink of destruction. The price we must pay for a cold and unemotional demise is a beautifully colourful and violent one. Choose! This is the dilemma we are presented with.
And of course, in our magnificently sheltered way, we may have already chosen. By throwing away our minds to the gurus of advertisement agencies, by swallowing wholesale lies traded back and forth by governments and multinationals, we have sold our souls and futures of generations still to come. And all we have to show for it are bigger SUVs and music systems.
And so, for each person who describes himself or herself as fun loving without telling us what fun is to him or her, we die a little. For every person who likes ‘music and reading’ without mentioning a single outstanding song or book, the collective brain of humanity suffers a tiny stroke and begins to switch off. For every person out there without an opinion, for every person with a fully belly and in reasonable health (do note, that I make an important distinction between people in distress, who do not have the luxury of thought and people in decent circumstances who just cannot be bothered), who chooses the path of least intellectual resistance, humanity begins its perhaps irreversible slide into oblivion.
A long time ago, I remember telling this person that the ‘aam junta’ (the ‘people’, the hoi polloi) should not, indeed must not be despised, for it is this junta from which greatness arises. Without the matrix around you, greatness would wither away in isolation. Note, at this point the condescension with which these words were said. As if the speaker himself stands head and shoulders above people around him. Quite far from it, in fact. This, I had said to one who, if anything happens to believe quite strongly that she stands head, shoulders and most of her quite delightful torso above the rest. Passing lightly over the aforementioned delightful torso (a delight, in itself), this person needed, and needs to this day a gentle reminder that greatness is indeed by comparison, and if it appears too easily within the grasp, then that is a tragedy, because the world is a simpler and less beautiful place than it could and should be.
At second glance, this rant is not a rant. Maybe I am too old to rant. Thinking that I am past the age where I should protest means that I have stopped breathing. And I am not even past my first quarter century! The mediocre must exist! Because without the contrast, achievement is not achievement. But must the mediocre be so mediocre? That is the question. Asimov, and Clarke, actually more Clarke than Asimov have dreamt of, and written of a time and a people where understanding was more than a pipe dream, where thought sat on the its rightful throne. But it appears to me that every such societal structure where thought rules and action lies subservient, must, by its very nature, be doomed to paralysis of the body, and by inevitable extension, paralysis of the soul. And that means extinction. And by the same coin, every race and people ruled by the men of strength teeters on the brink of destruction. The price we must pay for a cold and unemotional demise is a beautifully colourful and violent one. Choose! This is the dilemma we are presented with.
And of course, in our magnificently sheltered way, we may have already chosen. By throwing away our minds to the gurus of advertisement agencies, by swallowing wholesale lies traded back and forth by governments and multinationals, we have sold our souls and futures of generations still to come. And all we have to show for it are bigger SUVs and music systems.
And so, for each person who describes himself or herself as fun loving without telling us what fun is to him or her, we die a little. For every person who likes ‘music and reading’ without mentioning a single outstanding song or book, the collective brain of humanity suffers a tiny stroke and begins to switch off. For every person out there without an opinion, for every person with a fully belly and in reasonable health (do note, that I make an important distinction between people in distress, who do not have the luxury of thought and people in decent circumstances who just cannot be bothered), who chooses the path of least intellectual resistance, humanity begins its perhaps irreversible slide into oblivion.
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