My youngest daughter loves the movie,
Horton Hears a Who.
If you are going to sit through a kid's movie over a hundred times, it holds up pretty well and believe me, there are much worse things to sit through than this film. One afternoon on the 132nd viewing, the film's theme of being a minuscule person in a giant, unfathomable universe struck a nerve.
Please note 132 is a vague estimate, there was a period of time during nebulizer treatments that we watched portions of "Orton and Jojo" at least three times a day. My two year old loves Jojo, the misanthropic, non-speaking,Who most of all. Totally fits her personality....
The film deals with the heroism of Horton, who trusts in his big ears and the fact that "a person's a person no matter how small". However, another strand of the film is how the Mayor of Whoville accepts his infinite smallness in the universe. This is much more fleshed out than in the book, "fleshed out", as in the character doesn't exist in the book. I could only think of the great scene from Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". It's amazing, so, you know, watch it.
If you're too lazy to watch (shame on you) let me briefly summarize. Looking back on earth from a satellite thousands of miles away, the earth is only a pale blue dot. That's it. All that we've believed in, accomplished and fought and died for happened on a fraction of a pixel in the universe. The pale blue dot is about accepting the earth's rightful place in the universe - a tiny, unknown planet. It should humble us all and remind us that for all our pomp, we are really a primitive and disconnected race. It should in, Sagan's words, inspire us to "deal with each other more kindly and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot".
The fact is, we are the Whos.
We live in denial of this, almost as well as the Whos do - when Horton flaps his ears over Whoville, over and over again, the Whos just take their sunglasses on and off to adjust to the insanity.
"Nothing ever bad happened in Whoville, never has, and never will" -- as the lead on the Whoville city council says. We take our sunglasses on and off - we tell ourselves the narratives until they fit us like warm comfortable sweaters. Most of all these narratives (nationalist and consumer identities, religions, etc.) tell us we are important. We are the center of the universe.
yeah, i know it's only the world revolving around "me" but it's late and i'm tired...just go with it.
Let me stop here. For long-time readers (ha ha ha ha), you may or may not know that I consider my self a Christian. So these words you might find confusing, troubling, or crazy.
One day I might find the willpower or time to outline my exact theology, but until that unlikely day, just take my word on it - it's complicated. For now, it will be suffice to say I believe God created a universe that is (from my limited human viewpoint) ultimately unknowable. As far as the human mind can conceptualize, the universe is bordering on eternal. If God made the universe, then, we must be small.
In Douglas Adam's excellent
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe a torture device called the Total Perspective Vortex, "annihilates you by showing you just how infinitesimally small you are compared to the Universe".
Books 1 and 2 are outstanding and then the series just kinda goes down from there with each successive book. I don't think I finished the last one. Although if I taught an absurdist, existential literature course, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be on the reading list.
I don't think this smallness is necessarily inherently good or bad. In fact, the recognition that we are small is critical to letting go of our self-inflated importance and seeking a more authentic existence. Have you ever looked up at the stars at night and had the feeling of being inconsequential? The universe has created awe in theists and non-theists alike although with the size of the universe provoking (of course) different response and conclusions.
"What could define God [is a conception of divinity] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God," Hawking told Sawyer. "They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible." - Stephen Hawking (in a recent interview)
Because I do believe, I think our smallness shows us how special we are. At worst, we find ourselves alone in a vast, cold, life-less universe. Even in the best-case scenario, the universe is populated with islands of life surrounded by an almost unimaginable, life-less ocean. There is no doubt about it, humanity does seem to have a special place in the universe by virtue of being alive.
Ok, as you can tell I am not one of those "the universe is teeming with life' people. I could be wrong - but even if there is intelligent life, even lots of it - we still are millions, trillions of light years apart. It would be like telling you that you have a long lost sibling somewhere in the world but we don't know anything about that sibling. So, great you have a sibling but no way of knowing or communicating with he or she nor any idea where they might be in the world....So, so what?
Anyway, back to the film. At first, the mayor lives in denial of the entire possibility (thinking himself mentally unstable).... but eventually, he does accept his insignificance in the universe. He begins to trust a giant elephant in the sky for Whoville's very salvation. Don't confuse the mayor as one of Kierkegaard's "knights of faith" - his faith is based on verifiable evidence. Nonetheless, accepting his place in the universe means he must trust something above himself. Eventually, we all have to let go of something, and ultimately, I think it all ends up being about control.
Once we have accepted our role, and relinquished our ideas of self-importance we can move on to figuring out how best life should be lived. Now that I know I am no longer the center of the universe, what is my role? I answer that question by embracing the smallness - trying to integrate my role as a servant in my life. I struggle with this - but as I continue to surrender self to God every day a little more, I know my role must be one of helping and putting others first.
As the movie crescendo's the Whos must rally together and make enough noise so others hear them (and not get dropped into a boiling pot of oil). They shout "We are Here!" over and over - until they are heard. I imagine that's what we are all trying to do on a metaphoric level every day.
"We Are Here!"; indeed.
