"In America, where surface has always passed for substance, people always believe guys like Frank Dunning." Stephen King, 11/22/63 (the title of his book)
This truth appeared "magically" in a Stephen King novel where substance always appears to be fluff and stuff. "We hold these truths to be self-evident" can never be held to be self-evident as we no longer have truthful encounters on any subject, especially about those of deep substance.
How did we get to this place in time? It's hard to say because we know so little about our real origins or the actual people who took us with them on that journey. Did their journals contain actual events and real emotions or did they speculate as much as those who tend to give us what passes for truth today? My guess must be as good as what I think I know and my guess is that those who came before us embellished on the stories of their lives as much and maybe even more than those currently "blogging" about what is happening at this moment to all of us through their eyes.
The one thing that Stephen King has taught me in all his writings is that there is more truth in fiction than in any history or biography. This one small line in this novel about time-travel and what happens when you try to change the past speaks volumes about who we are right now, in this present age of change. It seems to me that we have slowly become just what he claims, a people satisfied with the surface of any subject rather than it's substance. And my guess about why is that we can speculate about the surface way more than we can about the substance. Substance requires more of our intellect and will while surface, is that shiny stuff that catches our attention and keeps us from going any deeper. That stuff sparkling on the surface could be many things---diving down means an element of risk taking that most of us would rather not brave. The water is usually very dark below the surface and as a swimmer, I can tell you that swimming in dark water takes some courage simply because you don't know what else is swimming in that water or where a big rock might snag your head or your foot or what could be waiting on the bottom to keep you from coming back up.
Life is very much like swimming in a lake at night. The moon reflects off the ripples. The stars twinkle on the surface. And most of us are happy just to take in the beauty on the surface because substance requires an effort that we are most often unwilling to make. This applies to people as much as it does to the situations which on the surface seem innocuous. We've become accustomed to accepting the rich and well-dressed among us as representative of all of us. Isn't that the American Dream? Dream is the key-word here because only 1-2% of all Americans live like kings and queens. Some are moving up the ladder but they will never get where the few are looking down on them from the surface. All Americans dream but what they are dreaming about is just what's on the surface. Their reality, their substance is in the depth of their lives lived bravely with their will and intellect in tact.
