Sunday, 21 February 2010The Incredible Shrinking Man Obediphobia clutches at my neck. I am worried about copyright, a subject upon which I am conveniently vague. Just a few days ago I cracked and gave up my plans to make a meticulous pencil drawn animation from UFO footage of a man tumbling into space and decided instead to project the original onto the wall of my lodgings; refilm it, print out the stills, reanimate them and slow it all down. Is this enough?have I made it my own? Or will the makers of UFO require payment? Will I be pursued by litiginous scifi buffs? While worrying I came across the closing soliloquy from “The Incredible Shrinking Man” and thought that in the end I don’t really care.
“I was continuing to shrink, to become… what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close – the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet – like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God’s silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man’s own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man’s conception, not nature’s. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist! “
