Read Online Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Walker Percy
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personality. You write about the Cosmos. You live next door to another astronomer, starship designer, TV personality. He also writes about the Cosmos. You both are employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, not so much for your scientific abilities as for your PR value and your skill at popularizing science. You both have written best-sellers about space travel, ETIs (extraterrestrial intelligences), the necessity for nuclear disarmament, and so on. You are both aware that man might well destroy himself and the earth before he can explore the Cosmos and establish communication with other civilizations. There is a friendly rivalry between you. You two have different solutions to man’s problems with himself.
You believe that wars are the consequences of sexually repressive societies, especially Christian. You have evidence that in more primitive societies, where sexual freedom is encouraged among both the young and adults, where there is an uninhibited display of affection and sexual contact, there are few if any wars. Your all-time favorite book is Coming of Age in Samoa. Your own latest book, Space and Sexuality, a best-seller, advances a proposal to create just such a society in miniature, a small community which is not only scientifically advanced but also loving and sexually unrepressed. Toward this end, you have designed a starship adapted from the Bussard fusion ramjet, which will accommodate a crew of ten (five men and five women), chosen not only for their technological skills but also for their freedom from sexual hang-ups, for a journey of several years to the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The starship has already been jokingly nicknamed the Love Boat by your colleagues. But in all seriousness, you propose that NASA initiate a crash program to launch the ship before what you are almost certain will be the last war on earth.
You have been invited to appear tonight on the Tom Snyder Show to promote your new book, Space and Sexuality.
Your neighbor and friend has also written a book and has been invited to appear on the Johnny Carson Show—which has a higher rating in the sweeps than Snyder. To tell the truth, his book sales exceed yours. You two do not disagree in your understanding of the Cosmos and in your assessment of man’s danger to himself. Yet your solutions are different. He believes that world peace can be achieved only by uniting the Western tradition of science and technology and the Eastern tradition of self-transcendence, especially Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
In his book, Space and Satori, a version of the British starship Daedalus, powered by nuclear fusion, is proposed, the crew to be commanded by an experienced astronaut but with a spiritual leader on board, the noted Tibetan mystic Ti Chen.
Tonight, your neighbor, Dr. L___, and Ti will promote their book, Space and Satori, on the Carson Show. Both of you know that it is more desirable to be on the Carson Show than on the Tom Snyder Show.
As you make your morning trip to the paper-tube, you meet not Dr. L___ but his wife, who has bad news. She has reached her paper-tube first and is holding aloft the L.A. Times. There on the front page is an article exposing a sexual scandal at the Ti Chen Institute at La Jolla. Described by a disaffected disciple as an orgy, an incident is described in which Ti Chen is alleged to have engaged in a debauch with some of his young male disciples, in the course of which your neighbor, Dr. L____, appeared unexpectedly, flew into a jealous rage, and assaulted Ti Chen with a broken bottle. Everyone at the institute, in various states of undress, was arrested by the La Jolla police.
“Can you believe such crap!” cries your neighbor’s wife, in a tearful rage, and slaps the L.A. Times. “I mean, my God, this you would expect from the National Enquirer. The same tissue of lies. I’m going to sue the bastards. Wouldn’t you?”
You nod gravely and solicitously. This is bad news, indeed. This could mean
You believe that wars are the consequences of sexually repressive societies, especially Christian. You have evidence that in more primitive societies, where sexual freedom is encouraged among both the young and adults, where there is an uninhibited display of affection and sexual contact, there are few if any wars. Your all-time favorite book is Coming of Age in Samoa. Your own latest book, Space and Sexuality, a best-seller, advances a proposal to create just such a society in miniature, a small community which is not only scientifically advanced but also loving and sexually unrepressed. Toward this end, you have designed a starship adapted from the Bussard fusion ramjet, which will accommodate a crew of ten (five men and five women), chosen not only for their technological skills but also for their freedom from sexual hang-ups, for a journey of several years to the vicinity of Alpha Centauri. The starship has already been jokingly nicknamed the Love Boat by your colleagues. But in all seriousness, you propose that NASA initiate a crash program to launch the ship before what you are almost certain will be the last war on earth.
You have been invited to appear tonight on the Tom Snyder Show to promote your new book, Space and Sexuality.
Your neighbor and friend has also written a book and has been invited to appear on the Johnny Carson Show—which has a higher rating in the sweeps than Snyder. To tell the truth, his book sales exceed yours. You two do not disagree in your understanding of the Cosmos and in your assessment of man’s danger to himself. Yet your solutions are different. He believes that world peace can be achieved only by uniting the Western tradition of science and technology and the Eastern tradition of self-transcendence, especially Zen and Tibetan Buddhism.
In his book, Space and Satori, a version of the British starship Daedalus, powered by nuclear fusion, is proposed, the crew to be commanded by an experienced astronaut but with a spiritual leader on board, the noted Tibetan mystic Ti Chen.
Tonight, your neighbor, Dr. L___, and Ti will promote their book, Space and Satori, on the Carson Show. Both of you know that it is more desirable to be on the Carson Show than on the Tom Snyder Show.
As you make your morning trip to the paper-tube, you meet not Dr. L___ but his wife, who has bad news. She has reached her paper-tube first and is holding aloft the L.A. Times. There on the front page is an article exposing a sexual scandal at the Ti Chen Institute at La Jolla. Described by a disaffected disciple as an orgy, an incident is described in which Ti Chen is alleged to have engaged in a debauch with some of his young male disciples, in the course of which your neighbor, Dr. L____, appeared unexpectedly, flew into a jealous rage, and assaulted Ti Chen with a broken bottle. Everyone at the institute, in various states of undress, was arrested by the La Jolla police.
“Can you believe such crap!” cries your neighbor’s wife, in a tearful rage, and slaps the L.A. Times. “I mean, my God, this you would expect from the National Enquirer. The same tissue of lies. I’m going to sue the bastards. Wouldn’t you?”
You nod gravely and solicitously. This is bad news, indeed. This could mean
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