Manifesto of the Campaign for Higher Silliness, Part Two
Created | Updated Aug 1, 2005
'There is a world elsewhere.'
Shakespeare, Coriolanus
Now where were we? Ah, yes: The world is a bungled job, a farce, a bad first draft. (Yes, Virginia, or Pollyanna, or whoever writes those simpering bumper-sticker slogans, Life IS a dress rehearsal.)
So what to do? Some say (and don't we just wish they wouldn't?): 'It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.' There are others who seem to think it would be preferable to burn the blasted house down.
Let's try something completely different, shall we?
Let's catch some fireflies, put them in a Chinese lantern, and watch the magic grow.
| On a stardate fine in the galaxy, |
| Leaving Alpha Station we were merry; |
| As a starship crew on a far-flung mission, |
| We were hunting for the Land of Faerie. |
Why not pretend the world is as it should be, full of excitement, adventure, and really wild things?
Why not recruit others to share in the madness?
Why not drive the zarquon-bothering stuffed shirts bonkers?
'I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm happy to say I've finally won out over it.'
Elwood in Harvey
In today's paper, a columnist was lamenting his own ethical dilemma when, on a recent bus journey from New York to Philadelphia, he sat next to a youngish Middle Eastern man carrying an oddly-shaped package. He spent the trip in an agony of fear, indecision, and self-recrimination. What if the package was a bomb? What if it wasn't? Should he tell the driver? Go to the lavatory and call 911 on his mobile phone? Was he a 'racial profiler'?
Why didn't he just talk to him? What could have happened that would have been worse than what he already feared? If the man was a suicide bomber, he'd detonate the bomb anyway. But wasn't there just the remotest chance that he could be diverted by timely conversation? And wouldn't it be better to go out trying?
Pretending the world is on your side won't make it that way, but it might get the attention of wandering aliens. And who knows, they might be listening.
Pick your targets wisely, mes enfants. Commit a random act of joy per day. Join the Flat Earth Society. Argue epistemology with a Jehovah's Witness. Write a silly letter to a breakfast-food company. Refuse to join a book club, because it's bad for your skin*.
Remember - no matter what you choose to believe in, there are worlds elsewhere.
As my Thomist philosophy professor used to say (quoting his 'auld Irish mither'): 'The longest way round is oft the shortest way home.'
Bring it home, spacefarers.
*Excuse shamelessly lifted from that great book by William Peter Blatty, Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane. It's the reason Cutshaw refuses to go to the moon.
