Although they shot the Alien Socrates last week, I didn't react enough to betray my sympathies. I get patted on the head and reminded that I'm a good girl if I do as I'm told, if I pretend to be indifferent to my future, allow myself to be swept into a life I chose at an immature time, let others tell me that I should be this or that by the look in their eyes and the way they expect me to be. I hate them all. I am not ashamed of myself for hiding my true loyalties--it's just easier, and I cannot be swayed from the things I have learned from him. Also, I know I cannot remain clever enough forever. Ahh. Too bad for them to have to handle the truth someday; later, perhaps, they won't want to change my mind. "I'm not a child anymore," I said to the philosophical visitor when we first spoke, but we knew that I might as well be to each individual with plans for and preconceptions about me.
The Alien Socrates found me online, but he asked that he meet me in person, in order to make a more satisfying impression. I don't know why he chose me, or why beings pick particular others for receipt of their camaraderie. Sometimes you can't discover the truth behind or in friendship~you are chosen by those you respect for strange reasons. I can't say that we were very close; I regret that. There was a huge philosophical and spiritual gap between us, because then I still thought that I knew everything, and he knew that nobody knew much of anything. But he came to see me in my natural habitat anyway, to unsaddle me from my high horse, perhaps. A fine teacher indeed.
We walked in the rain; his feet were bare and the mud made soft sucking music when he walked through it. "Some kind of unity," he observed as the streetlights flickered to life over the course of a half hour. There was no startling sunset to show him that evening, but I'm sure he knew it was there, under all those clouds. "Nature is prettier than you, always."
He asked me questions to find out just what was this great truth that I thought I knew. I told him that all I knew was from books--I realized those as the solid facts, those you could quiz me on and which I could recite like the alphabet. But I'd always thought about things for which there were no check, no right or wrong; doubt in my own intuition was the basis of disbelief in my own deduction. "Don't be stupid," scolded the Alien Socrates as I tried to think. "Memory needs interconnection to make it work. You are dumber than you believe and smarter than you know."
The garden afforded a comfortable seat for his alien body. The rock, one I positioned with my own hands, seated one; the sister stone lay a few damp feet away, underneath me. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Why do you learn?" he began in reply.
"To know."
"And what will you use this knowledge for? Because knowledge alone is lovely, but applied with a good purpose it can become the most beautiful thing in the world." He winked twice. "Don't think you can stand to bring much more aesthetic joy to the world, eh? But then there's the hard work. The life of a cog in the machine isn't terrible. You could be happy as a creator, directing part of the larger scheme, or as a cooperator, one involved with the unity of things."
In response to this, all I could say was, "I don't understand yet. But I'll try." I was emotionally untouched, but I began to switch allegiances to the Alien Socrates. Why was I learning if did no good? I was feeling too lazy to be great, but I yearned for greatness. I did like the sound of a regular life, but where's the glory in it? Could I really change the world, or was I willing to become a snowflake falling into a warm water? There was a war between aspiration and conformity inside me~one needed me and I needed the other. Part of me spoke--"You are no hero. You dream too hard." My dreams had tried to kill me before.
But back then I had something to fight for, something to live for, and something to die for. Now I had something to think about for the rest of my life.
The Alien Socrates waited until dark, asking little else, and then slipped away. I helped him. Allegedly he was caught by warring factions of the National Teacher's Association--the separate committees who made "Dream Big!" and "Cooperate!" contrary slogans--and kept in custody until he ceased to be useful, and therefore living. And who cares about a philosophizing visitor? No tabloids beat down my door. No one knows my story, except the others who lived through the same thing, and I can't say who any of them are--I don't know. Nobody knows how many lives he touched. I am trying more now to be different, to unearth my dreams from a pile of old papers and think dangerous thoughts. But better yet, I can sleep better knowing there's a safety net under my life. I don't have to be spectacular to be a part of something. The universe can get along with out me, but it might be lacking a little color--or be a little shorter on manpower. It'll be all right. I'm O.K. And the Alien Socrates' words live on somewhere, not unheard.