I often dreamt of falling
admin on Nov 23rd 2008
It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I realized that thinking about how I might die probably isn’t completely normal. I know I pictured falling from an airplane numerous times throuought my childhood. It didn’t seem to be all that strange until one day I had an epifany. I had thought about it so many times that I had a pattern of what I believe would happen should I actually fall (or leap) out of an airplane. I’m not saying I planned to fall, but just that one day I came to the realize that I had thought about it an inordinate number of times.
What brought about this realization is watching an anime series on television. Wolfs Rain is the show that brought about this revalation. I won’t give away much because I hate it when someone ruins an ending for a show I haven’t watched. I will say that at some point cheza goes over a cliff. I guess my idea of falling was influenced by hollywood movies. Drop zone and the like. I always pictured myself in a straight arrow arms calked back diving headfirst into oblivion. It never occurred to me that I’d be flailing madly kicking and screaming or any other of the millions of possible bodily positions.
Cheza’s influence in the series is that she is genetically modified to be part plant. A flower to be exact. When she goes over the cliff the artists who created the show envisioned the flower and came up with a sequence that is just astounding. She falls kind of like a dandilion. Feet down arms stretched out like a ballerina and twirling gracefully into the chasm. Its an absolutely beautiful scene. It also makes me wonder how they ever managed to think of the idea of making her fall like that.
Its this difference in perception that I find most interesting. A while back a new lock was introduced into modern automobiles. Locksmiths everwhere were looking at this and wondering how they would deal with the issue if they had to open one of these new cars. With every lock there has always been a way to pick it. Sometimes many ways. This lock of course proved to be no different in that an easy way locksmiths could open it was found. Its just different in how it happend. Lock picking and lock bumping are both long used tools of the locksmith and both are the result of thinking outside the box. Neither of these will do the trick though. The real leap of outside the box thinking was solved by (of course) some thieving carjacker kid. Air pressure. Instead of trying to unlock the lock all that is needed is to open the car. by applying air pressure to the inside of the door rapidly the button that you press down to lock the car pops out. The door is unlocked without ever using any kind of mechanical tool. A common tennis ball with a hole poked in it can do what thousands of professionals couldn’t figure out.
I won’ t say going to school is a bad thing, but the reality is that when you send your kids to school you are starting their training on being average. Even graduates from the highest grades are only ever trained to fit a mold. What about creating something that doesn’t fit in a mold? Thats why I like stoners. I don’t agree with drug use, but the real stoner type is horrificly ingenious. Not because they have or haven’t baked away half of thier brain. Its because they have to be. To get away with doing drugs they have to think of things that we “normals” would never percieve. So the carjacker brat and the stoners have something in common. Bank robbers too. (not the stick em up kind) There is a need to think of things other people wouldn’t concieve and a result to create something wonderful.
So for the future of mankind how do we go about creating the influence needed to go beyond the typical box that education creates without the evil part of the influence. How do we keep our children from going to school just to become working class grunts with no concept of more? What can we do to make them great?
America has begun to stagnate. fifty or a hundred years ago people lived on a farm or plantation. Things were invented or created out of necessity for survival. Society has almost reached the point now where survival can happen even without creation. Welfare, social security, ect allow almost anyone to survive regardless of their worth as a human bieng. We’ve developed beond the point where natural selection can continue to advance civilzation. So I’m wondering what is that next leap? Who is going to find the out of the box solution that puts us back on the right track? Or perhaps a cataclysm needs to knock us back to the middle ages so that our advancement can begin again and we can continue on.
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