kethrai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The saving of humanity. I got reminded today of how much I love science fiction. I was re-reading a Star Trek novel. Some of the finest sci-fi writers out there cut their teeth writing Star Trek--say what you will about a silly 1960's show with styrofoam sets that Bill Shatner was all too adept at chewing up--something about it catches the imagination. Some of the most unlikely people are Star Trek fans--they even look normal in public, I assure you. But the basic thing about science fiction--except for the ghastly post-apocalyptic stuff like "On The Beach" is the belief that we go on. That sometime ahead of now, sometime in the future, sometime beyond this world with threats of war and reminders every day that we are far behind what we should be-- that we still survive. And that in some small way, we get better. Day by day, century by long century. I'm a humanist, at heart. Not too much of a human chauvinist, I hope, but a humanist. There is some part of me that cries in sympathy when someone says "Please, let us never spread off this planet, lest we fuck up another one as badly as this" but my whole heart yearns for the up-and-out, and when they're selling packet tours to the moon when I'm ninety, I'm planning on knocking over all those whippersnappers in front of me in line and I'm sure as hell GOING. I've been waiting a long time for this. If we do not go up--and I firmly believe this--we turn on each other. Sometimes I look at some of the stories that I love so much and wonder what it is about them. Oftentimes, they're clumsy. There are writers who never really got over the phase of drawing starships in the margins of their homework and are obviously more in love with the machinery than the mechanics of characterization. Sometimes--especially in the older works, but also in some of the newer--there is cringeworthy sexism. Sometimes they are more divisive than uniting, and foresee futures where every small difference--right down to the prescription of your glasses--is worthy of hatred, and THAT is certainly no future I want a part of. Sometimes they see us--you, me, us--as less. But sometimes--as more. Starships in the movies are quiet--have you noticed? Sleek and fast and glorious and like something sprung from the margins of a fifth-grader's homework. And while I love them for the vision of what we might be....I am also humbled, because.... Do you remember the first time you ever saw a space shuttle take off? I think I was seven, and we had a black and white television. She was so tiny. Hitched to the backs of two large bombs. You watched the camera shake like crazy because of the vibrations of sheer SOUND and she got smaller and smaller against the sky. She rattled and groaned and commentators talked worriedly about the possibilities of all of her tiles ripping off in the mad wrestle to get free of Earth's atmosphere. Do you remember where you were when Challenger blew into ashes? The shock because already, that rattling, clanking, chemin-de-fer to the sky had seemed so safe, so normal. It was an affront that she should die in a fireball, within a mere few minutes of liftoff. Have you ever looked at a shot of Earth from space? A picture of the moon from out-atmosphere? Sharp-edged, small and huge at the same time? I am delighted by the portrayals of clean, blade-sharp spaceflight because we might yet do that--I am humbled because that rattling, clanking, tile-shedding beast lumbering into the sky on the back of double warheads is who we already ARE. We got UP. Into the UP AND OUT. And WE'RE STILL GOING. And this, at the heart of it, is why I love science fiction. We dream ourselves larger than we are, and do it. Someday we may be out there, boldly going. Preferably without the split infinitive. But for right now? We have aspirations. We have hopes. We have stories written of a future past, where we are larger and better and ever more hopeful. And on the backs of the engines of war, we slingshot our racketing, shuddering, creaking, impossible dream into the up-and-out, and already it is becoming commonplace and you know what that means? It means we're looking to the next thing. And when we despair, when we give up, when we think we are not worthy to do more than poison our own planet--HEY--BUDDY--YOU'RE CLOGGING THE LINE. GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. Some of us have been waiting a long, long time for this. And until the waiting is done...some sweet hoping dreamers have written us tales to tide us over. 9:31 p.m. - 2003-01-09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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