Defying Gravity

Modern Civilization, the phrase so often invoked by your leaders in times of great trial or triumph, the supposed culmination of humanity’s greatest achievements, is nothing more than an elaborate farce. Your definitions of modernity imply scientific and technological advancement as required tenants for inclusion. Those that by choice or by force, go without such advancements, are so easily dismissed as backward or peculiar. What if I were to tell you that at the core of your so-called modernity there exists a fundamental falsehood that has become so ingrained, it is almost never challenged? As you read these words, you believe beyond any doubt that gravity is responsible, in its ever-present, naturally occurring way, for your glass of water’s peaceful resting state upon the table; for your table’s immobility on the floor; for your floor’s inextricable cling to the Earth. Hopeless fool. Thankfully, among you there are some beautiful and as yet, unsullied minds. What child has not, at one time or another, questioned such a ridiculous notion? Perhaps even you, in your youth, once mused: ‘If I cannot see gravity, how do I know it is real?’ Perhaps you gazed enviously at the cloud-laden heavens and imagined what it might be like to defy the restrictions of gravity as the winged birds do. Tragically, the “evidence” heaped upon you has long ago extinguished such childish flights of fancy. Unforgivably, you have already, or will one day in the future indoctrinate your own progeny, rendering them forever enthralled to the lie. You are of course absolved of any guilt or responsibility in so doing as you, yourself are also a victim. I did not set out to write you this message from a position of judgment or condemnation though I will be the first to admit it must seem so. You are wondering: who am I to pass any judgment upon you? To which, I offer my congratulations for the first of what I truly hope will be an infinite number of good questions you are finally brave enough to ask. However, the answer to your query is a bit more complicated than “who” I am. I think the more appropriate question ought to be what I am. Those like you have called me many unflattering things, not least among them freak, mutant, and monster. A few misguided but kinder souls think me to be an angel. Simply put, I am a human being. Does that revelation comfort you, or give you cause for concern? If you are wise, it should be the latter because if I am human, it means that you certainly are not. Though we may look alike, I assure you I am the shark in form and function to your minnow. Both fish, I admit, but you will agree that is where the correlations cease. Enough deflection now, I began this writing with purpose. I offer you a precious truth, a chance for salvation. I have but a single condition. You must, with the same fervor you placed in its infallibility, reject all that you have been told of gravity. Before you resist, simply consider what that world might be like. Enclosed you will find the history of an adolescent, not unlike your past, your present, or your future, who took the ultimate leap of faith. In becoming a man, he became a human being. -F.R.