This week I read an article about the death of "Cyber Flaneury" (
see here) and shortly thereafter re-watched my favorite childhood movie, The Neverending Story. In Richard Todd's book about the "
search for authenticity", he talks about various ways that we create and process reality in the quest for true experience. Objects, architecture, politics, tourism, our social selves, and even Walt Disney's "fascistic smarm" are not safe from Todd's evaluation of things TRUE and REAL. Maybe a walk in the woods is best... But back to the Neverending Story. Here is the scene where Fantasian warrior Atreyu learns about the nature of his universe, which is being destroyed by The Nothing:
Atreyu:
I will not die easily. I am a warrior.
G’mork:
(G'mork laughs.) Brave warrior, then fight the nothing.
Atreyu:
But I can't ! I can't get beyond the boundaries of Fantasia.
G'mork laughs and Atreyu grows angry.
Atreyu:
What's so funny about that ?
G’mork:
Fantasia has no boundaries.
A storm grows closer to the city, slowly shaking it to pieces…
Rocks fall here and there.
Atreyu:
That's not true. You're lying.
G’mork:
Foolish boy. Don't you know anything about Fantasia?
It's the world of human fantasy. Every part ,every
creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind.
Therefore, it has no boundaries.
There's a crash and more rocks fall.
Atreyu:
But why is Fantasia dying then ?
G’mork:
Because people have begun to loose their hopes
and forget their dreams. So the nothing grows stronger.
Atreyu:
What is the nothing ?!
G’mork:
It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair,
destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu:
But why ?
G’mork:
Because people who have no hopes are easy to control.
And whoever has control has the power.
Atreyu:
Who are you really ?
G’mork:
I am the servant of the power behind the nothing.
I was sent to kill the only one who could have
stopped the nothing. I lost him in the Swamps of
Sadness. His name was Atreyu.
