Escapism

I wish I had a Tardis. While I’m wishing for things, I wish I had a magical fire breathing pwny. And lived in the mystical land of Leporia where talking rabbits with top hats and monocles drank tea and played bridge with aforementioned magical fire breathing pwny and I. And let’s take it a step further where this mystical land of Leporia has transcended all vestiges of greed and selfishness, and as much as we are self-centered in the way we think every sentient species are like us, they are hardly afflicted with the human condition other than their vices in strange Victorian fashion and their penchant for the popular Russian card game. I wish that in Leporia, they maintain a hive mind and live in perfect equilibrium with their surroundings with the transfer of energy maintaining a perfect balance. “Waste not, want not”. However, it is due to this state of perfection that they stagnate, and with change as the only constant, a miniscule rock hitting the face of Leporia tips this delicate balance and wipes out the species from the face of the planet.

I have a disturbing addiction to stories, concepts and tales. The idea of a not-so-distant possibility intrigues me to a degree that I obsess over that particular possibility and think of it not only at every waking moment, but it invades my subconscious when I sleep. Vivid dreams where the images are not bound by any laws of physics, time or space fill my slumber with picturesque scenes that life will never be able to provide. From the thrill of flight, to the complexities of a sentient being that can perceive the 5^th dimension and touch the fabric of the universe, travel through time and space without moving an inch. I dream of the possibilities of evolution, where will it bring us? Will we ever be able to work together as a species to ensure us and our planets survival through the rest of eternity? Would a zombie epidemic really wipe out the human race? Or will we finally find the reason to cooperate in face of adversity. And to fuel this wonder of the vast unknown, I have my enormous wealth of movies, books, musings, scribblings, soundbits and possibly every single documented piece of fact and fiction out there, waiting to deposit itself into my repository of “possibility parameters”.

I love movies. I lose myself in them - from the anarchistic nihilism of fight club, to the sardonic satire of Starship Troopers. So many questions run through my head. What if someone actually did wipe out the entire world’s credit card debt, will our world degenerate into chaos? Or will the foundations that have held us to this very point continue to support us through the crisis? And when I watched Starship Troopers, and thought about the Zerg race, I wonder if there would ever be an intergalactic war with human beings fighting for the survival of the species, or whether they will be like Leporia, where peace and coexistence are the first reactions to any alien encounter. Would human beings be able to MATURELY handle an alien encounter? Or will we treat aliens like how we treat people just slightly different from ourselves, with conflict, fear and disdain?

At the same time, when there are “what ifs”, there will be “has beens”. I used to take history. Wasn’t very good at it, but I liked the study of things long past. The lessons they impart are rather unforgettable, especially when they have been repeated. Like how Hitler marched into the Russian Winter with his Operation Barbarossa, like Napolean’s Grande Armee before. But I place less focus on specific events, and more of the actions and intentions of man. History might be the study of events, but literature is the study of the nature and intention behind that event. Animal Farm might have been a historical recount on the transfer of power during the Russian Revolution, but it gives perspective on man’s greed and ambition and that ultimately, the enemies that we so vehemently hate, become our role models. The curious dichotomy, between the Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, the fatalistic fall versus the hubristic fall represents an age old debate of our locus on control. Do the circumstances of our birth dictate the person who eventually become? Do we mould who we become, or is it all predestined?

And at the same time, these issues that humanity faces are almost trivial in the wake of the span of time man has been in existence as a species. Our mark on history is but a wrinkle in time, yet we have the audacity to believe that we have inherited the Earth. That we are some omnipotent being’s chosen ones. Our history, our literature revolves around humanity as the most precious in all the cosmos. The belief that our rightful place in the universe is here on this planet, that we are the residents and not the visitors of this space and time. We forget that we are but fragile bags of meat and flesh, no different from any other creatures that roamed this planet. That our social constructs, economic infrastructure and rules that bind our civilisation together are of utmost importance of the survival of our species. We spend our time creating these communities and then spend more time learning how to live within them, how to survive. Even the language I type in is the product of man trying to create some semblance of order within this maelstrom we call life. Our feeble efforts at exerting some control over human history.

At the same time, it’s impressive how tenacious we are as a species. We have effected so much change over our planet that no other species has ever done before. We have wiped out so many of our numbers yet we still continue to grow and spread over our puny planet. Our curiousity has led us to unravel and attempt to fathom the mysteries that lie on and beyond our planet. We might have a really short history, but it is packed with life. Art and culture, the cacophony of our expressions as individuals, the assertion of the human identity. Our attempt to be different where we are essentially the same, the product of sentience. I look around at what we have built and marvel at how far we have come. And although all of us hardly have a clue where we are going or where we’ll end up, we’re doing a pretty good job banging around in the dark trying to find that elusive purpose of the human species.