Dear blog reader
I hope that this finds you doing
well. I hope that you have not succumbed to all of the snow and cold. The
Sharritts have been better. We have had a loss in our lives. The mother hen, an
electric space heater that the lovely Miss Beverly and I would drag from room
to room allowing us to enjoy a 70 degree micro climate as we found a spot to
sit, committed suicide. All of this talk of killer cold weather, stay inside,
stay home from work, don't lick the flag pole, dispirited the mother hen so
badly that she caught on fire.
While snuggling with the lovely
Miss Beverly late on a cold Saturday morning, I snuck my arm out from under the
covers and hit the on switch. Poof went the heater and an acrid gray smoke came
out of the vents that had, here to for, bathed us with life invigorating heat.
I scurried out of bed, unplugged the mother hen, and put her out on the front
porch and snuggled back into bed with Bev. It is sad that all of the doom and
gloom caused the mother hen to succumb, to give up and to pull the plug so to
speak.
Anyway, I suppose that we will
survive. The cold will ebb. The days will lengthen. We will have to learn to
get along without the mother hen. Fortunately, everyone else was out buying
eggs, milk and bread for winter storm French toast, leaving the space heater
aisle unobstructed when the Lovely Miss Beverly went out later in the day. Luck
was with her and she came home with the parabolic dish of glow. So far it has
sustained us nicely.
It is tempting to write about the
weather, or mother nature (I refuse to capitalize her so shut up spell
checker.) It is tempting to write about how the b*&#% is out to kill us. 11
below (I know that is nothing to my friends in 44 below Minnesota )
with 30 mile per hour windsl, this is not a trifling matter to my Indiana
It really is too easy a target;
writing about the weather when it is this extreme. It still is nothing compared
to the blizzard of 78. I look out my window on the world now and I can see
fences. I could not back then. They were covered in these gigantic snow drifts.
So I just need to calm down a little; take a deep breath and write about what I
had intended to write about all along.
Way back in November, the family
went to see the Hunger Games. It was very enjoyable and convinced me to go
ahead and get the trilogy of books so that I would be up to speed when the
final installment hit the celluloid in the next year or so. As we were leaving,
we met two of Ben and Grace’s high school teachers. They had their children and
friends along. We were talking about the movie and it struck me; I wonder if
these teachers had taught the kids about the book 1984. Isn’t that what the
Hunger Games are really? They really are just 1984 with a hopeful message.
That was the other thing that
struck me about the water cooler conversations about the Hunger Games. Person
after person reported that the books really depressed them. As I was reading, I
just couldn’t see it. You knew that Katniss was going to win. You should read
1984 if you want to slog through something with no hope. So that is what I did.
I slogged through the Hunger Games Trilogy and then leapt straight into 1984.
These are some of the things that
struck me. First, the Hunger Games was published by the Scholastic Corporation.
You remember Scholastic don’t you; the monthly book club for kids. It was
always trying to get us to buy the Witch of Blackbird Pond during my formative
years. I only wanted to buy that year’s edition of the Guinness Book of World
Records. Was the world Tallest Man still alive, and had anyone dethroned the
worlds fattest man who was buried in a piano box? He was huge. So Scholastic published the Hunger Games. By
definition, they published this story for the youth of America
Second, the heroine was very
self-centered. This isn’t surprising since the author, as many authors do,
wrote a story with which her target audience recognize and make a connection.
Now before the youth of America starts whining that it isn’t fair that I am
stating they can recognize themselves in a self-centered, center of the
universe heroine, I want to taunt them and say pay your own health insurance
for a while child. Why wasn’t the premise that the President of a totalitarian
state cares about a 16 year old girl dismissed out of hand? Only in an age of
twitter, facebook, and viral videos would we have faith that one person could
change the world and the delusion to think that it could be us.
Sure it is about martyrdom. The
Hunger Games uses the device of martyrdom to change the world. Orwell, on the
other hand, was very specific that the party and big brother made sure that
there were no martyrs. You were rehabilitated until you loved the state and
then killed. You were never allowed to check out in a state of hatred. That was
how the party would never change. With no martyrs there was no hatred to stoke
the masses, this left no hope of over throwing the state.
It is interesting however that in
the new world order, the Hunger Games does not martyr the heroine either. In a
self-centered world, the heroine can have surrogates die for them. They provide
the emotional energy to turn the crowds, to spur them on, while the heroine
channels their energy with just a few scratches on her chinny chin chin to show
that she too was down for the fight. In the end, it was just the threat of
self-annihilation that was enough to turn the tide. I bet there are some
Vietnamese Buddhist monks that are kicking their charged remains right now.
“You mean I didn’t have to strike the match and self emulate? Damn!”
It strikes me that Orwell hit the
nail on the head when his protagonist, who was just as individualized, was
hunted down, tortured, broken and then killed; not making a dent in the
totalitarian rule that had enslaved society. That view, while bleak, is more
realistic of the individual disconnected from those around them making a
difference.
The individual does not change
society. We are not the center of the universe. When we see ourselves as
individuals; unconnected, unable to empathize or recognize other person’s
motivations, desires and contributions, we delude ourselves. We see ourselves
as saviors, and yet have nothing to save.
Take care
Roger
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