Clarke and I

There comes a time when one must admit defeat. For me that time has not yet come.

But it is time to make some tough decisions. I came here to try and interview Arthur C. Clarke as a basis for a documentary film about his life and about our future. I got an interview. More accurately, I got an interrogation. I am trying to be nice to everyone and play the game and anyone who knows me will agree that it is not an easy job for me. But out of respect for Clarke I tried. I wanted to make a film about clairvoyance but instead I am reduced to bureaucracy. 

I didn’t want to start a fight but two agents and several secretaries seem to do everything in their power to drag me into one. I believe Clarke deserves a film about his life and more than that, he deserves to play a role in our destiny. So now, the question is simple: Should I make this film about an innocent wide-eyed kid trying to reach a dead star whose fading light is the only thing left OR am I to abandon this battle with 14 minutes of sunset and try to do the best damn documentary about one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century?        

No news yet from anyone. Not even a “kindly drop dead” for Xmass.

Clarke’s secretary didn’t even respond to my courtesy email. Clarke’s UK agent didn’t reply to my plea for clearance. if I didn’t know better I would swear everyone is working together to prevent the world from hearing Clarke’s final prophecy. 

I wish it were so dramatic. I guess the reality is that too many people have a function to fill around Arthur and their “job” is more important than ensuring that this great man is documented on every second that he can breath. And he can barely even do that. 

Yesterday we arrived at Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak). This powerful mountain is lodged like a crisp dark triangle between chains of green ridges. It is a sacred site for Buddhists, Muslims, and Christians, and it became quite momentous for a couple of Jews as well. People come from all over to climb this mountain in a religious experience equal to the Muslim Hajj. We are not religious and can barely believe half the things we can’t see but after about three thousand steps you are bound to get a little holy. Holy shit that is. When we set out at 3am we couldn’t even see the top of the mountain we were scaling. We knew the trail was about 7km long and roughly 1.1km tall but nothing could prepare us for the actual scaling. Well, that’s not exactly true since anyone who had read Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama knows that the insane staircase and ladders that led from the center of the flying cylinder to the flat world inside it was modeled, rightfully, after Adam’s peak. I’m not sure Clarke has even scaled it but he is not likely to any time soon since they are still working on the handicapped parking place below and the cable car will not make an appearance before the end of this century. It took us about 3 hours of straight climbing. If you’re not a spiritual man when you leave, you become one around the 4500th step, just before you can make out the final plateau at the top. Shaped like an ominous flattop pyramid, the tiny platform at the apex houses two small temples. One contains the footprint of Adam or of a Hindu God—depending on who you ask.The other structure houses a bell that climbers can tall while making a wish. I wished for a blanket and hot tea. No luck. Marvelous sunrise nonetheless.

I am not sure but I am beginning to see a pattern. it seems that anywhere you turn, religious experience is always associated with pain and suffering. Why is that? Why can’t we have a little bit of pain to remind us that we are human and then a nice escalator to a higher level of existence? Kierkegaard said the aesthetic stage begins and ends with despair but that a true leap of faith is done with fear and trembling. Yesterday I felt a little bit of both. Our host at the lodge below the trail said that the mountain had cured him of diabetes. He showed us his foot, which was scheduled to be amputated a few years ago. I don’t know if science helped him out or what, but after climbing the mountain over a hundred times I guess it finally took pity on him. Which is more than you could say for the thousands of butterflies that fly to the top to die. 

If there is a connection between western manipulation of matter and eastern transcendence of time - we haven’t found it yet. But we are looking. I’m sorry I can’t write more often but Internet service here is as much spiritual as it is scientific. More from Colombo after Xmass, which, for a Buddhist country is quite sickeningly pervasive. 

Well, gotta be merry.