A Sardine on Vacation, Episode 3
The Real Future
"It's going to rain tomorrow."
Who said that? Why, it's the spiritual counselor for news organizations and columnists on and off the Internet, Reverend Grindgrad.
You mean you haven't heard of this man of the cloth, rag, byte, and action-cam? The advisor for a multitude: Daily Post Times Gazette Herald Bulletin Globe Sun Eyewitnessnews Courier Press Inquirer Dispatch. Give us this day our daily news.
The Father's remark intrigues me. He rarely affirms the never-may-happen. If he says there will be rain, it will rain.
NO, it has already rained!
Of course, weather forecasters err and will grudgingly admit it. Nature is erratic, illogical. Being to Science what the minister is to Religion, the meteorologist understands that people want to believe what he says, especially the sunny predictions.
Father Grindgrad stares at the Sardine. Am I from Mars? Don't I know better than to criticize weathermen?
Watch how they sweep away errors. Not by denying mistakes and inconsistencies. Better to convince the public by thoroughly explaining the errors. Ex post facto infallibility. The system of weather forecasting smothers any single blown forecast as if it were an unwanted baby.
The five-day forecast exemplifies the beauty of the system. The future looks brighter and better for those who cannot remember what they're told yesterday.
"The five-day is a television thing," says Father Grindgrad. "People don't read the papers or log in to find out tomorrow's weather."
In fact, he is very concerned fewer people read newspapers. His favored diocese dwindles; the people turn to other faiths. I cheer him up and remind him of the sports and astrology columns that keep the faithful happy.
"You can laugh," he replies bitterly. "You think people don't take astrology seriously. I tell you who does. Newspapers. The same paper that quadruplechecks the facts wouldn't dare exclude Sidney Omarr. I've blessed Advice Columns for 'Leos' who wondered should they doubledate with 'Geminis.'"
The Doublespeak from the heavens isn't much worse than weather reports. Like most prognosticators, the astrologer never dwells on a past performance unless he or she hits the BIG ONE. Then we'll hear about it for years, á la Jeanne Dixon.
Uh oh. I hear the grunts of incomplete understanding.
"Who the hell are they?" asks Grindgrad.
The people who used to take your blessed offerings from the newspaper each day.
"I'm sorry, I don't usually associate with that element.”
The Logged-In Public: What about Nostradamus? He predicted the Arab-Israeli Wars and Hitler.
Why do we want to know the future? Could we handle knowing how things will turn out? Forget about knowing the weather. Historical convulsions like Marxism and its working out of the class struggle to certain inevitabilities and the Soviet Union and its Five-Year plans. The gulags were filled with people who questioned the leaders who believed they had seized the future.
We desire permanence, security. We're scared animals. We are also impelled to change, to improve our conditions, if for anything, to make ourselves less scared. Western civilization balances these two needs. Too much permanence leads to stagnation; incessant change erodes society's structures. No one knows what to think. Industrialism and technicism have brought in an Age of Change-for-the-sake-of-change and a world dictated by future-planners.
L-I P: What's wrong with that? You have to think of the future to make it better.
The rush to the future is nothing but a wave good-bye to the present. Our world is impatient with the present, bored with endless complexities. We can't wait to get on to better things. In our haste, we destroy the world we were once familiar with. All for an unreal future, a fixed future, a perfected life.
L-I P: Don't you want a better world?
Sometimes I can't help myself and do. But I would prefer to reach a real future.
L-I P: What's that?
Paying attention to what's happening around you. Nearby. Without being too parochial or impatient. Listening carefully. That's how one gets to the real future.
L-I P: Just live in the present! Do our own thing. Well, what then?
Maybe this will help, my source for the term:
"Real future in its proper meaning implies a change of quality, a surprise, and a promise." (The Multiformity of Man, Eugen Rosenstock-Hussey)
This column tries to realize the same.
A change in quality: the knack to turn a serious point on the hub of the inconsequential.
The surprise: that the public's put up with thus far, my third column, even if I can't convince them that Nostradamus is inconsequential. Seriously, to try to turn the column in unexpected directions.
The promise depends on the "Sardine" column fulfilling its ideal: to mark something different from the regular magazine, internet, and newspaper opinion fare.
"I'll bless this column," Father Grindgrad said finally, "but it's going to rain. I can feel it in my bad foot."
The Sardine's essays, articles, and stories have appeared around the Internet in the last few years at 3 A.M., Facets, Eclectica magazine, Fiction Funhouse, The Fiction Warehouse, 5_trope, and several film journals. Who and what he is probably will be revealed at various points through the articles appearing at this site. If you want to reach him, his address is popesixtus@aol.com.