I don't remember why, but recently I was thinking about the final English paper I had to write when I was a senior in high school. It was supposed to be written like a valedictorian speech, and we had to get up in front of the class and read it and everything. When I was 18, I hated talking in front of people. Any people. I barely spoke to my friends. But reading something I had written out loud seemed like a special kind of torture devised solely for my humiliation. There was no rational reason for me to feel this way. I had never experienced any negative feed back in any similar circumstances. I was just psychotically shy. Anyway, we were supposed to use some of the books we'd read over the semester and write this speech. I went up and dutifully read it off the paper, not looking up once. And this guy, Chris, commented on it. Actually he commented on it in tandem with the person's who followed me. My speech had a lot to do with To Kill A Mockingbird, which is my favorite book and I had read about ten times before. The basic gist of the paper (as far as I can remember) was that people need to be nicer. It even included that cringe-inducing phrase "Do unto others as you would have done to you." What do you want? I was 18. Anyway, my classmate and I were preaching tolerance and Chris took issue with our proposed utopias, where everyone persumably got along and held hands and sang or something.
Of course, I didn't say anything in response at the time because I was too busy turning bright red and wishing I were dead because someone had actually called attention to me in class! Anyway, I was thinking about this yesterday and it kinda made me start to think. At the time, I think I was making a small plea for courtesy to re-enter the world. You know, holding doors open for people, not telling people they need to lose weight - garden variety politeness. And while I don't think I was hawking John Lennon's Imagine as the owner's manual to my life, I think that basic respect and courtesy can help lead the way to a more peaceful existence. The thing is, Chris was scornful of the idea of a utopia because if everyone agreed and got along, life would be all kinds of boring. But I agree with him. The thing is, trying for a utopia is a completely different ball game from achieving one. See, utopias don't exist and never will. Unionists and Republicans are never going to agree in Northern Ireland and Palestinians and Israelites are never going to back down from their positions in the Middle East. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to make the lives of the people involved easier to live. It sounds a bit like tilting at windmills but a lot of things we thought would never happen have. Do I think that one day we'll abolish war and everyone on this planet will get along? No, I don't. Do I think we should keep looking for non-violent ways of dealing with conflicts? You bet your ass I do.
Being an activist and trying to shake up the status quo can be really depressing and disheartening. I can't save the world by myself and sometimes I feel really insignificant. But you have to press on. Really. I know I will be ridiculed mercilessly for this, but something I saw on Angel (yes, the Buffy spinoff show) really made an impression on me. I'd like to say for the record that, despite the fact that I consider myself highly intelligent, sometimes I have to be hit over the head with a point before it decides to sink into my brain. Therefore, movies and TV shows that belabor points are catering to me. Keeping that in mind, consider the episode when Angel decides he's tired of fighting evil because it is everywhere and he's not making a dent. The Evil Lawyers tell him that the reason evil can flourish on Earth is that everyone has some bad in them and not enough people try to keep it in check. So Angel decides he's fighting a losing battle and decides to chuck it all in and lose his soul again. This will enable him to become an evil, cruel monster who kills and tortures indiscriminately and for pleasure. So. Since sleeping with Buffy (a moment of true happiness) lost him his soul before, he decides to fuck Darla, the vamp who sired him. Only fucking Darla doesn't cause him to experience a moment of true happiness; only a few orgasms.
So he has an epiphany and declares, "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do." I know Joss Whedon hasn't exactly copyrighted this idea but, and I've said this before, I learn everything I know from TV. And so, whenever something horrible happens, like W. getting 'elected' to the Presidency, and it seems as if nothing I want for this world will ever come to pass-then I concentrate on things I can see and touch, that I've contributed to (or will contribute to), like educating my semi-feminist brothers or looking forward to help in shaping my nephew's attitude towards the world. Or even thinking about children of my own. It's like a version of The Serenity Prayer without, like, God and shit. So anyway, Chris, ten years later, I have to say to you that, yes, an actual utopia would be boring and undesirable. But striving for one is neither. All that matters is what we do.
