I was watching a television show, just one of my recreational activities watching the telly, and there was a movie – I didn’t see the title of it – on FX staring John Travolta he played a character named George. I won’t go into the details of the movie but at some point in the movie after a birthday celebration, he left to go home, he was drunk. While he was outside he saw this bright light in the sky and it suddenly came towards him and struck him, like being struck by lightning. When he woke up he realized that he had the gift of knowledge and was able to tell things about people, see their future even. As the movie evolved around George’s new gift, in the movie the town’s people became afraid of his gift and started questioning him, a lot, and the FBI became involved after George was able to transfer some secret intelligence stuff from Morse code being transmitted by the army. (prior to that he had predicted an earthquake too) So the FBI took him to their offices and grilled him and ran every tests they could on him being highly suspicious that he, a simple man, could have all this knowledge and wondered what he was up to. They even locked him up in a hospital trying to get more information from him. The doctors there wanted to study his brain because of what they learned about him, and no, not while he’s living normally, nor even dead – they wanted to do it by taking his brain while he’s still alive and his brain cells is still active! Don’t ask, that was too weird. So eventually George escaped and went to his home to pack a few things and finish up some stuff for his friends to have. He then went to the home of his love interest in the movie to die.
This got me wondering that if such a person was in our real life, how we would react to him or her. If you knew someone who could give you the answers to everything you have ever wanted to know, (not a psychic) would you want them to tell you? If you could learn the answers to your future; the answers to any question you ever wanted to find out; see what would happen to this world and the people in it, say 50 years from now, would you want to know?
If you were to learn the answers to all of life’s problems, would you want to know or would you be afraid?
It’s a human fallacy to be curious and the need to learn and humans are very curious beings. But are we so curious that we would want to know all the answers to the things we don’t know or understand if given the chance?
Would it be better for you to not acknowledge this person’s talent or to scoff at their gift because doing so would make you feel more comfortable? That’s what the people in the movie did.
Who knows, I don’t know if the world is ready for someone like that. I think he definitely would be treated the same as John Travolta’s character was.
I don’t think I would want to learn everything about my future. Perhaps the only thing I would like to learn is if I will find that which it is I’m destined to do in my lifetime. A simple yes or no to that question would be enough for me.