When a wink is as good as a nod

 

 

Friday, January 24, 2014

 

I keep thinking of that old sci fi movie where a conscious intelligent human being is trapped inside some alien being and can’t get out.

The best he or she can do (I don’t remember much of the character just the situation) is tap out a message through blinking eyes or movement of some sort with the hopes that someone outside will realize that there is someone inside and find a way to reach him or her.

And the outside, is the hero first coming to grips with the idea that he is reading the message correctly – (he’s not crazy there really is a message) and then to figure out what to do about it.

He appears to be the only person who actually realizes the situation – everybody else misses the point, and never really gets to know the person inside.

After a long time, the hero really does get to know the person trapped inside, better than anyone else, even when he is helpless to do anything but continue to listen to and translate the message, gradually getting to know the trapped person better – so that eventually he knows that person better than any other person, even those who profess to be closer.

The hero comes to rely on these blinks and winks, partly because it is possible to fall in love with someone that way, I guess.

Perhaps in knowing that person deep inside, he gets to know himself, and his own inabilities and limitations.

There are things he’ll never know, of course, but that’s the challenge of life and what makes the whole thing interesting, knowing he can never know it all, but always hungering to find out more.

At one time, he assumed that all those around this alien creature manipulated the person inside while they manipulated the alien. But after a while, the hero realized they didn’t know about the inside person at all.

Later, the hero assumed that the inside person was manipulating those around the alien, like a puppet master pulling strings.

But over time, the hero came to understand that the person inside the alien was acting out roles in order to remain sane, and to find some significance, trying to shape a life out of a terrible situation in which no one can touch the inside person, only the alien being.

And the hero wonders, if by this blink and wink, he has found a way to touch and be touched, even when at times, he and the person inside seem to be at odds, and that in this back and forth, in this sense of knowing and not knowing, they find some kind of lasting sense of friendship or even love that none other can possibly have – when sometimes, as the old saying goes, a wink is as good as a nod.