In The Zone...

 

With the writers’ strike happening, my TV is loaded with either re-runs or reality television. My tolerance for reality is pretty limited out in the real world. I don’t need it on my TV so I’ve turned to the stockpile of The Twilight Zone that sits on my DVR. I’ve always been a fan and it never gets old.

As I watch, I can’t help but think that these shows from the late 50s and early 60s were eerily prophetic. Was Rod Serling some sort of modern-day Nostradamus? The themes of the shows are very progressive. Of course, they were scripted towards imagination about the future and commentary about the mindset of the times.

Here, in 2023, we should be evolved and trusting and care about one another without prejudice but instead, people seem to be suspicious of others and fearful about the world as a whole. I see it every time I leave the house. It seems that people have forgotten the basic manners and decency towards their fellow human beings.

Turn on the news and you’ll see that once quiet suburban neighborhoods are riddled with random gunfire. Clowns are in government offices, books that have been cherished for generations are being banned because some parents are afraid that their children’s minds may be accidentally opened. The inmates are running the asylum!

I think that if I pitched these ideas to Mr. Serling, I’d be told that they were too far-fetched and too unbelievable for sci-fi and people wouldn’t be able to accept it as the future. Yet here we are. Real life 2023.

I’m not discouraged. The “reality” that has been presented to us is not real. When I look beyond the awful headlines, I see good people doing amazing things. People run into danger and rescue others. People reach out helping hands to feed, to protect, and to comfort their fellow humans more than we know. THAT is my reality. And really, looking back at those old black and white Twilight Zone episodes, didn’t Rod Serling always have a message about being better, doing better, and disregarding the awful?

I don’t know if he was a fortune teller or just amazingly creative, but I’m grateful to have those old shows as a reminder of where we were, where we hoped to be, and what’s possible if we veer too far off the path. My destination is a loving, kind world and I plan to keep walking until I get there. I’m in the zone.