The Gosh Factor

 Reading Arthur C. Clarke's book Report from Planet 3, I am delighted, just as I felt when I was a teenager exploring science fiction for the first time. But I look at it differently from before. Whereas before, I would treat science fiction as literally about the future, I now acknowledge that it's a text that was constructed by someone in the "then present". This shifts the focus away from an imagined future and toward telling a story that is unfolding in a particular time and context. The future (or what we imagine it to be anyway) can only be looked at in terms of the present day hopes and apprehensions.

   It's important to keep some of the "gosh" factor within as we age and see new realities, but I am beginning to feel that the "form" of gosh is more important than the content. That is: it's not what fascinates you so much as how you are able to sustain an inner sense of fascination, that truly matters. And I do think that it comes from giving proper due to an idea, no matter how strange or seemingly irrelevant it may be. Sometimes when I don't particularly think that an idea or vision will fly very well (or have already criticized it as silly or unattainable), I take a moment to make as if the idea has hidden wings in it. With the "as if", I plant the seed for learning to see good in the idea, without necessarily committing to the "this is the best idea" notion. What ends up happening is that either the idea evolves into something bigger, or it grows just enough to enrich already existing concepts. Even when an idea doesn't quite seem tenable in the end, harboring ideas enriches our current situation and thoughts. But the important thing is to be able to foster an openness to new ideas that still need time to germinate. That's why it's important to have a part of you that is willing to say "gosh" or to balk at something, even if it's only a contrived sense of surprise in the beginning.