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not. It's a circular path aimed at healing.)  Once upon a time in the future there was scientist who developed a robot that had very human emotions and feelings and that could think and learn and thus grow intellectually and emotionally. He constructed the robot's body out of a metal alloy that was largely lead so that it would be resistant to radiation so it could be used in a wide variety of settings. He constructed it's carrying capacity and stress tolerance to be only 150 lbs. so that the robot would not be able to physically overcome its human supervisors. He created the robot to look generally like the robots of science fiction stories and movies from the 1950's, '60's and 70's so that everyone coming across it would immediately understand that it was a robot -- about five feet and six inches tall, of dull gray, unpainted metal with basic human-like facial features like 2" discs where eyes would be. Though the robot was constructed to have the capability to learn, it's learning capacity was purposefully designed to be limited to the learning capacity of the average human with an IQ of 80 (that is, a maximum capacity of low average). The scientist made twelve copies of the robot. The scientist then set the robots a task of going all together through a maze constructed of two miles of 6' tall metal panels, some of which were actually very strong magnets, capable of pulling any robots into them and completely disabling it if the robot stepped even a few inches off the center of the path between panels. Further complicating the robots' challenge was the addition of mirrors that very effectively hid open passages while tending to trick the robots' perceptual mechanisms into misjudging the distances and causing them to walk into magnetic walls. Even further complicating the robot's challenge, the scientist added barely visible images to some of the walls -- images that the robots had been programmed to be very, very painfully, frightfully fearful of. Any robot that did not make it through the maze was taken to a specially designed room where it was presented, over and over, with large, bright, vivid versions of images that it had been programmed to be very painfully, frightfully fearful of. The robots, having been designed to see but not to be able to avoid seeing, were left to experience the frightful, painful images with no provision for their ending. The robots and the image projector were all powered by batteries with an estimated twelve million year life. Once upon a time in the past, a mother and father had twelve children. They were very poor and struggled with anxiety -- as did their parents and grandparents before them -- and each child was exhibiting an above average level of anxiousness by the time he or she was three. Every child, on his or her ninth birthday was given a test. He or she was taken to a distant city a minimum of 600 miles in a direction determined by a spinning arrow like the one used in the game Chutes and Ladders. The child was left in that city in the ghetto-like area in the area with the most businesses -- usually newstands and porn shops. Each child was left without instructions or explanations. Unknown to the children, their parants monitored their journey home completely, videotaping and documenting their every step and decision. Though monitoring their journey, the parents had a rule for themselves that they would never intervene in any decision or happening as the child made its way home, even if there was a high likelihood of harm or death. On arrival home -- any child that did actually make it home was severely punished for any and every action that did not fit the parent's standards of good behavior, and for any and every hurt that the child experienced. The punishment for these errors in judgement or happenstance was a severe beating every day until the child turned twenty-one. Once upon a time today, one person asked another: "What punishment should a parent give to a child who is not smart enough to be smarter than he is? What punishment is correct for a child who is not taller than she is when facing situations that would be solved if she was taller? What correction will correct a child who should have known what was not taught to him? How long should a child be punished for not doing what she was not told she should do? How much of a grudge should one hold against a child for not choosing to be very.much older and very much wiser than he or she actually is? not. It's a circular path aimed at healing.) |
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Is it fair to say that -- when a tsunami rushes through a village, carrying away adults, dogs and children, smashing them into trees, rocks and houses -- that those adults, dogs and children "gave in to their desire to be smashed, dashed and twisted? Inquiring minds want to know.
Once upon a time today, I was asked if I had ever thought of the distressing plight of Smegal (Gollum) in the Lord of the Rings in the context of his morally weak, selfish, ugly actions and the struggle between his higher and lower selves. The thoughts went along the lines of the following: "A long, long time ago Gollum gave in to his desire for something that belonged to someone else. He folded to covetousness and envy, and with that one choice followed other choices of betrayal and murder that resulted in an isolated and lonely life of continual flight from those who would have what he had. Gollum also spent the rest of his life fleeing from the voice of his higher self. Each time Gollum made a choice for the lower way out of divine pattern, he became a little uglier, inside and out, until he becomes a pitiful, but dangerous, slimy creature, with barely a glimmer of what he had been before his fall." These are views I find stimulatingly rich with judgement and condemnation. Smegal gave in to his desire? He folded? He chose choices of betrayal and murder -- and fled from his higher self? Each time he made a choice for the lower way out of a divine pattern? Wait. When did Smegal ever have a choice? When did Smegal ever choose any choice? And when did Smegal do anything but conform to the divine pattern? Smegal was fishing with his brother when his brother found a ring of terrible, terrible power -- a ring that had a will and a menacing purpose that could instantly twist and control the minds and hearts of kings and even the strongest of warriors, if only they came within a few hundred yards of it -- a ring that had thwarted the desires and designs of the great king that had bested the ring's maker and made that king foolish and dismissive of the pleading advice of the greatest of elves. The ring that Gandalf feared to touch -- as did all other good, great and knowledgeable beings. The ring controlled Smegal like a little puppet -- as it tried to do to all great and small persons that came near it. Then it drew the great king that cut it from its maker's arm into an ambush and had him killed so it could find an even mor malliable mind to control. It first lured Smegal's brother and then took Smegal's mind and life, forced him to kill his own brother and then took Smegal into solitude beneath a mountain to await it's maker's return. It kept Smegal alive as it's slave for six times as long as his kinsmen could expect to live, twisting him and making him obsessed. And forever after the ring exerted its power and design over Smegal. And as the ring exerted its power and design over Smegal, keeping him as its slave, an even greater power and a greater design was pulling other strings, additional strings, controlling Smegal and all around him in even more complex, powerful ways, with even greater subtlty, invisibility and purpose, designing and influencing Smegal's actions, his obsessions and his quests and designing and molding the compassion and/or anger of all those that came across him. And this higher puppeteer force moved and maneuvered Smegal and the ring itself to assure that the ring would find itself on the brink of the firey volcano where the ring could be destroyed. And it was there in the heart of the volcano, where Smegal's last act of his puppet's life and greatest act of sacrafice was to bite off Frodo's finger and take the ring into destruction, thus achieving the cleansing of the world that no living or dead being in Middle Earth had the will or strength to accomplish. What price should such a puppet pay for being unable to resist such forces? What guilt should such a being, such a puppet, deserve? What hell and what pain should be added to the hell of the six hundred years he had already experienced after being forced to kill his own brother for a bobble? When did Smegal ever have a choice? When did Smegal ever choose any choice? And when did Smegal do anything but conform to the divine pattern? And where would Middle Earth, the armies of men and the light of the sun have been were it not for the sacrafice of Gollum -- the savior of all life and all light in Middle Earth -- to his puppetness? It is interesting how one of the main differences between adolescence and adulthood is that adults begin to recognize that even when they think they are certain about something, they might be wrong. But all along the way in life, we can again and again find ourselves still forgetting that we might be wrong about something we feel so certain about. It is difficult to be certain about anything in life. Some things seem so bad but in time seem to have been a significant part of something good. Some things seem so good but in time turn out to be lined with bad. This seems to be an especially important issue when it comes to the harsh judging of one's own actions or the actions of others. Perhaps this is why, according to the Bible,
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