Genuinus et sophia populi

America chews through its own feet democratically. We're constantly talking about "optics" as if this were the value of government. In order not to appear biased or partial, commentators on television—and others copy them—talk about how voters will respond to what they're seeing. So what? Let's put aside this preoccupation with pandering. True democracy is not rule by majority, nor is it pandering to optics. True democracy is healthy engagement, mobilization to change the way we live for the better as soon as the need arises. True democracy is government by the people for the people, yet as little as possible by short-sighted trends or closed-minded majorities. True democracy draws on the full intelligence of an entire population to find the best decisions.

It's geometric

Oh wow, a fragment I had lost forever! You know when you hear an entrancing song on another continent or half-asleep, or learn of an astonishing historical incident or use a quotation for a while, or see one-third of a biopic on an airplane, and it was so moving, but you can never remember what the blazing excess of wasabi it was?

I've been trying to figure out what in those tarry nations this science fiction movie I saw was. One thing it was is a fluke: I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but my dad saw the name on the tv guide station while walking by and said, "Oh, [forgotten title]! That's wonderful! Wonderful! I read the story years and years ago. It's horribly sad. You should watch it. Really!"

So I did.

But I didn't get a chance to see most of it. We had to go somewhere—the dentist, can't the dentist wait, is the dentist more important than this—and I remember the tug and indignation of having to amputate the rest of the story he himself had suggested, right when the plot was thickening. "You'll see it later," he said. The same exit sign had landed on "2001: A Space Odyssey" like a flying saucer when I was in Kindergarten, though I think that was a swim instructor rather than a dentist. That time we'd been taping the broadcast on VHS, so I do know everything up to the late stage where HAL is losing his memory in floating banks. My brother and I watched and watched our copy pirated from the airwaves, but I've only seen the ending once—in the Uptown cinema in DC, actual year of 2001. Later, a friend told me this is the same cinema where 2001 premiered on April 2, 1968. After watching it there that day, the director went home and cut 19 minutes to improve the pacing. In 2010, 17 of these minutes were found in perfect condition in a salt-mine in Kansas.

Anyway, it isn't the kind of thing my dad would remember years later. Yes I asked, and he didn't. I searched... and searched... and searched... and never could find hide or tale of this hard sci-fi adapted for tv. What's in a name? A calling card? Nothing I saw rang any bells—cowbells, doorbells, bluebells, jingle bells, nothing. You know when you're sure you'll remember something, and you do for a while, so you assume you always will? Yeah, that.

The only line I remembered was: "It's geometric." An astronaut on a ship in deep space looks at a graph projecting some pattern into the future. Well. That, uh, just ain't sufficient to locate an obscure bit of television. The only reason the line stuck was because I didn't know that "geometric" and "exponential" were synonyms, or it hadn't quite clicked, and the word puzzled me. So I turned it over in my mind. It was one of those moments that show the use of a word to you right where you're climbing, surrounded by ferns, lianas, gibbons, and no-see-ums. You forget most of the intros, but you remember some.

Right near the end of an Aaron Sorkin video, he mentions this short story "The Cold Equation" by an author he can't remember, and it sets something off in my head.

A little searching later, and I've found it... a 1996 made-for-television movie that aired on The Sci-Fi Channel.

It's aliiiiiiiive! (Clears throat.) Um, yes, er, so this happened!

Haha, I'm sorry, the lost fragment bothered me so many times! Every time I tried to think of this name stuck confoundingly on the tip of my tongue, I couldn't stop hearing "Equilibrium" (which I haven't seen, but which definitely wasn't it). Then I'd think of "Event Horizon" (which I did see, and it was terrifying in the theater), and then I'd go blank and have to give up.

Is it ironic that someone's lapse on the author's name sparked my memory, ending my own lapse? He didn't even have to tell the gist of the story (though he does in the video). That instant I heard the name, I knew. It was as if a time capsule had fallen open in my ear.

"The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin, 1954 short story later named one of the best ever written. It's been produced several times, including for "The Twilight Zone." Now I know more—I've got the bookmark back!

A similar experience with the television series "The Velvet Claw" excited me enough that I wrote about it here.

I guess it's time to finish what I started.

Update: I've read the original story which is in the public domain, found out I can stream the Sci-Fi Channel movie with one of my memberships, and am collecting my thoughts...

Second update: I've watched the movie, and it isn't particularly great, but I'm really glad I got back to it. The line was "It's a geometrical equation." Not "It's geometric." And I must have dropped in towards the end and only seen a bit. The short story is truly heartrending. It's like being punched in the solar plexus at a funeral. It filled me with actual grief for about 15 of the 16 pages. The film is more believable in some ways and less believable in others, but I still shed a tear.

b or b

One of the most frustrating things is when, by hard experience, you know yourself—your limits, your frailties, your normalities, your talents—but you have to contend with the status quo inclinations of others who wish to deny the truth of you. I've been told that it's not acceptable to be shy, not acceptable to be a night owl, not acceptable to spontaneously and arduously follow my many interests and tie them together rather than operate on a strict schedule. Yet these are all denials of deep truths about myself, and the deniers are wrong.