Part two of the beginning of The God Show, looking at how easy it is to not see something, even something seemingly impossible to miss.
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There’s a scene in Travels with Charley where Steinbeck drives into the Redwood National Forest anticipating this staggering reaction from Charley. Charley’s a dog and no one appreciates trees like dogs, right? So Charley’s in for an awesome adventure. Steinbeck even hides Charley back in the camper so he won’t see anything until he finds the perfect three hundred foot “grandfather of Titans” to unveil. This is gonna be so good.
Steinbeck knows “The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferrable. From them comes silence and awe…The vainest and most slap-happy and irreverent of men, in the presence of redwoods, goes under a spell of reverence and respect…One feels the need to bow to unquestioned sovereigns.”
Steinbeck is even afraid Charley, tree connoisseur, “might be translated mystically to another plane of existence” by the experience “for this could be dog’s dream of heaven in the highest.”
But once out of the camper Charley is clueless. No comprendo. He walks in the weeds and drinks from the brook and looks for something to do. Steinbeck grabs his muzzle and points it up so Charley can see the majesty, then even rubs his nose against the the wall of the mammoth trunk. Charley doesn’t know it’s a tree. It’s too far outside any kind of dog expectation or experience.
Steinbeck finally cuts a branch off a willow sapling, sharpens the end and sticks it in the ground leaning against “the godlike thing.” This, Charley can appreciate and he does what dogs do – a little promenade, aim and fire.
You and I of course, would never miss something so obvious.
Have you taken the Awareness Test?
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