Orion and the Airplanes
There are times when I suspect that I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have lived under one of the major appoach routes of a busy international airport for, oh, say, thirty years, give or take, and I only just noticed that the nightime flight lights make really cool patterns. Like for art and photographs and stuff. Duh!
When I have one of these Moron Moments (especially one that lasts uninterrupted for decades) I can't help but wonder what else I've been missing. What would my life be like if I could really turn on all the parts of my brain? Or even just a few more of the currently unused bits? Would I suddenly accelerate into something like the creature-planet embryo Kubrick was trying to show us at the end of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or would I just be me, version 2.0? Does the moth look back on the larvae with shame, or with giggles?
Since it isn't likely to happen, I'm free to suppose that I would turn into something wonderful. Notice I have not mentioned the possiblilty that I would just become a slightly more effective sociopath. Or an even bigger pain in the ass. I could join the semi-pro ranks instead of languishing here, unappreciated, among the amateurs.
Maybe I would just take better pictures. Ah, the joys of daydreaming.
I have never been the kind of artist (or person, for that matter) who could see the beauty in the industrial, the wastelands, the dissipated, the forgotten, and the forlorn. My response over the years to the growing airport traffic above me has not been to appreciate the miracle of air travel; the ability of people to move all around the globe at will; the lights traveling across the sky like the chariots of minor gods. I have learned to block out the ever-increasing, overbearing noise. I thought it would save my sanity.
I have been listening to all the Spring birdsong, trying to recognize the different birds, and I have been having a lot of trouble maintaining my focus. I realized that I automatically shut down my listening apparatus when the planes go overhead. Which is often.
I have chosen a willful, selective deafness, and closed my brain to a piece of reality. At what cost?
What other beauties have I been missing?
When I have one of these Moron Moments (especially one that lasts uninterrupted for decades) I can't help but wonder what else I've been missing. What would my life be like if I could really turn on all the parts of my brain? Or even just a few more of the currently unused bits? Would I suddenly accelerate into something like the creature-planet embryo Kubrick was trying to show us at the end of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey? Or would I just be me, version 2.0? Does the moth look back on the larvae with shame, or with giggles?
Since it isn't likely to happen, I'm free to suppose that I would turn into something wonderful. Notice I have not mentioned the possiblilty that I would just become a slightly more effective sociopath. Or an even bigger pain in the ass. I could join the semi-pro ranks instead of languishing here, unappreciated, among the amateurs.
Maybe I would just take better pictures. Ah, the joys of daydreaming.
I have never been the kind of artist (or person, for that matter) who could see the beauty in the industrial, the wastelands, the dissipated, the forgotten, and the forlorn. My response over the years to the growing airport traffic above me has not been to appreciate the miracle of air travel; the ability of people to move all around the globe at will; the lights traveling across the sky like the chariots of minor gods. I have learned to block out the ever-increasing, overbearing noise. I thought it would save my sanity.
I have been listening to all the Spring birdsong, trying to recognize the different birds, and I have been having a lot of trouble maintaining my focus. I realized that I automatically shut down my listening apparatus when the planes go overhead. Which is often.
I have chosen a willful, selective deafness, and closed my brain to a piece of reality. At what cost?
What other beauties have I been missing?
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