Rod Serling was quite a guy. I don’t know a thing about his personal life, but he sure did have it right when he created The Twilight Zone. This is the anniversary of the premiere of the show, which started in 1959. Yes, Serling was the show’s creator. Up to that eery moment, he had been a successful TV writer for several years. He always tested the network sensors with his edgy writing skills.
But that show. That Twilight Zone, has become iconic. A fixture in our minds. A reference in our speech when we talk about all things too crazy to believe. The actual show ran for five seasons, but it continues to seep into the fabric of our lives.
Look at the headlines these days, and you will surely hear that familiar tune that ran with the Twilight Zone theme. Do-Do-Do-Do. Do-Do-Do-Do. Our current world is just another episode of the Twilight Zone. Around our every corner.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Impeachment Investigation, and all things Trump. I keep waiting for Rod Serling, with his little dimpled grin, to step out from behind the desk of the Oval Office and say “You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!”
You can say that again, Rod. We’ll see how this dimension pans out.
Our world. The dimensions are endless.
I saw this week, where a woman climbed over a barrier into a lion pen at a zoo. She did a little dance in front of the lion before she was severely warned, by the lion, to get the flick out.
Another man, at Yellowstone, purposely strayed from a boardwalk surrounding one of the geysers there. He then proceeded to get into that boiling water, either intentionally or accidentally. Either way, he is in critical condition, in some hospital, somewhere.
And a woman in Sacramento fell into a coma after using bootleg facial cream from Mexico. Oh, to capture the everlasting beauty of youth, at any cost. Every where you turn, there is just a little bit of crazy going on.
Yep. A whole lot of crazy going on, more to the point. And here we are in the midst of it.
I’ve been told by those people of higher enlightenment, that our every experience is a lesson. A life lesson to take us to another place on our path. Neither good, nor bad, but simply a transition.
Frankly, I’m not sure how much more transitioning I can take.
But we learn, and we grow. In a hypothetically best-case-scenario. We go bravely on, bettering ourselves, and helping the world in the good things we do. As I said, in a best-case-scenario. Yet there are days when we just don’t feel like be saintly, gosh darn it anyhow.
And on those days, sometimes, we retreat. We find comfort in the things that are soft, and nice, and safe. And that is okay too. To find that place where it just feels good to shut it all out for a moment or two, or two hundred.
Imagine, if you will, Rod Serling sticking his fingers in his ears, and saying loudly, “Blah. Blah. Blah. I can’t hear you,” when all the Twilight Crap hits the fan. And that is a lesson for us in itself.
Today, may we all find our good zones, the ones that are right, just for us. Where ever they may take us.
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“I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.”
― Lois Lowry, The Giver
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“Not only is the Universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.”
― Werner Heisenberg, Across the Frontiers
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“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
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