And, a happy new year to all. Time for new year’s resolutions we won’t
keep, but that hopefully keep us pointed in the right direction at least. Time to assess the year before and see how
far we’ve come and if last year’s leg of life’s journey has lived up to
expectations.
It’s been a dark year, in many ways. Wars that seem never to begin or end, blurring into an endless gray mist of dusty ruins and young faces flitting
across our T.V. screens. Drones fill the
sky and body counts seldom even bother to reach us. (Is this what Purgatory looks like?) The war doesn’t seem limited to foreign
shores anymore, though. In our own
cities, protests and riots explode out of senseless deaths that seem to echo
the deaths of bygone eras. Times and
fears we vainly thought behind us now seem to rise anew in the dark shadow of a
police force that seems to grow increasingly militarized and estranged from
society. Who is the enemy at home? Look next door, or look in the mirror. Maybe that’s your choice, or maybe that’s a
choice that was made for you before you were born.
Fantasy, and popular belief are often based on the premise
that everything happens for a reason.
That there’s some grand plan at work, though we can’t always see it, and
everything will work out in the end.
Angels watch over us and the devils are always slain in the end. That’s the rule. Maybe that’s the real key difference between
the fiction genres of fantasy and science fiction. In fantasy, the outcome is generally
assured. Good must triumph over
evil. Science fiction however, acknowledges
the randomness of the universe. We’re
not spirits clothed in fleshy raiment with roles to play in some divine
tragedy, comedy or love story. We’re
apes who learned to talk and walk upright.
Who evolved from lowly vermin after a random meteor killed the
dinosaurs. I think a lot more people
gravitate to fantasy, especially in troubled times like these, because it
offers comfort through certainty.
Much as religion does. Science fiction sometimes takes a darker path because
it seeks the truth, and the truth, let’s face it, ‘aint pretty.
Fantasy seems lately to be coming of age, though. Case in point: Stephen Sondheim’s bizarre musical “Into the
Woods” a retake/mash-up of popular fairytales that replaces the happy ending
with the ambiguity of open and uncertain futures. No “happily ever after”; just hope for
working it out day to day. Like
traditional fairytales, this stylish black comedic romp has morals couched in
symbol and metaphor. Dark, starkly vivid
morals of sexual predation, infidelity, moral compromise and hard lessons
learned at the cost of innocence. A
happy ending at one moment seems a certainty and is then snatched away by an
apocalyptic catastrophe, like a fairytale 9/11.
Everybody blames everybody as answers are sought. Chaos ensues and deaths occur without rhyme
or reason; a fall here, a misstep there.
No justice or higher plan apparent; just random particles
colliding. Just as the lives and
disparate missions of the characters collide throughout the play, one affecting
the other quite by accident. In the end,
the only certainty is that everyone must work together against a common enemy
in order to survive. Justice? No.
Just survival. Happy ending? Not really.
Cinderella finds the reality never lives up to the fantasy glimpsed at a
distance. She leaves her prince and opts
for a normal life where she can discover who she is day by day, not where she
can be the prince’s fantasy. People pick
up the pieces of shattered lives and begin anew, forsaking old dreams for new
realities. No certainties. Just new beginnings.
A new take on old fairytales for our times. Fitting, I think. Life never hands us the guaranteed happy
ending wrapped up in a shiny bow, no matter how hard or earnestly we work for
it. As Buddha put it, the enlightenment
lies in the journey, not the destination.
And so, we forge ahead…
