from The Boy Who Wouldn't Go to War
Dr. Christopher Means sat in his darkened dressing room sipping a ginger ale and listening to the sounds of the people leaving Wembley Stadium in London. He was told, on the way back to his room, that the attendance for the evening had exceeded 100,000 people. The tellers also told him that prior to this evening the largest attendance for any event at the stadium had been a Green Day concert on June 19, 2010 with slightly over 90,000 screaming fans. The gentle philosopher now held the attendance record here. It was still a dream and a puzzle why so many humans were willing to come out and hear him speak.
He was not extraordinary in his own mind. He walked on two legs like all other humans did. He loved. He cried. He felt hungry and got sick. He felt anger. He was sure that most of the people who came to hear him speak would find that fact a strange one. He felt anger. He was not angry at his parents. It was not his wife who elicited this emotion from him. It was not his good friend and mentor, the former Robert Hammond. It was Christopher Means who made him angry. He was angry at himself for choosing to become the voice of non-violence of his generation. It had cost him the part of his youth when he should have been having fun and thinking about the kinds of things that normal twenty some-thing-year-olds did. However, the choice was his. He was not forced by anyone. Several times Meagen had attempted to talk him out of following the path he was now on. Even his own children longed for a father who had time to play more and think and write less.
Again he thought about the screaming fans at the Green Day twenty-six years earlier. He had listened to their music for a brief time as a teenager. He wondered why people screamed when presented with a group of singers and musicians that they liked. None of the people had screamed during his talk. They did laugh at the proper moments and clapped loudly at various points during the evening. This event took place beyond the borders of the United States. There were no paid Administration demonstrators attempting to disrupt Christopher’s humble thoughts about war and violence in the world.
The crowd was polite and, for the most part, interested in Christopher’s ideas and concepts. As he sat looking from the window in his room he could see the mass of bodies leaving below the old fashioned sodium-vapor lights surrounding the stadium. He wondered if he had moved any present to change their views on these important subjects he brought with him or if maybe many had just come to hear and see the curious man who had been a political recluse for much of the time while offering his views and efforts to change the direction of violence and war in the world.
He speculated that perhaps he was a curiosity like Joseph Carey Merrick, the Elephant Man, who had been in London over a century before Chris Means had come to Wembley Stadium to share his thoughts. Chris feared that the views he offered may have been seen as deformed as Merrick’s body had been during his public time of humiliation. He now wondered if he had deluded himself into believing that what he had to offer was seen as nothing more than a carnival act by a segment of humanity that had little interest in following his ideas and taking the steps necessary to affect change.
This thought was not critical specifically of the British people present this evening, but possibly of everyone who had come to hear him speak since his time as a college student. Chris was facing a crisis of self-doubt. He had been away too long from those who loved him and wanted to nurture him. As he sat in the semi-darkness of this alien room so far from home his mind drifted back a time earlier in his life when the outside world was becoming aware of his thoughts. The conversation was as clear in his memory as if it had taken place yesterday.
Dr. Christopher Means sat in his darkened dressing room sipping a ginger ale and listening to the sounds of the people leaving Wembley Stadium in London. He was told, on the way back to his room, that the attendance for the evening had exceeded 100,000 people. The tellers also told him that prior to this evening the largest attendance for any event at the stadium had been a Green Day concert on June 19, 2010 with slightly over 90,000 screaming fans. The gentle philosopher now held the attendance record here. It was still a dream and a puzzle why so many humans were willing to come out and hear him speak.
He was not extraordinary in his own mind. He walked on two legs like all other humans did. He loved. He cried. He felt hungry and got sick. He felt anger. He was sure that most of the people who came to hear him speak would find that fact a strange one. He felt anger. He was not angry at his parents. It was not his wife who elicited this emotion from him. It was not his good friend and mentor, the former Robert Hammond. It was Christopher Means who made him angry. He was angry at himself for choosing to become the voice of non-violence of his generation. It had cost him the part of his youth when he should have been having fun and thinking about the kinds of things that normal twenty some-thing-year-olds did. However, the choice was his. He was not forced by anyone. Several times Meagen had attempted to talk him out of following the path he was now on. Even his own children longed for a father who had time to play more and think and write less.
Again he thought about the screaming fans at the Green Day twenty-six years earlier. He had listened to their music for a brief time as a teenager. He wondered why people screamed when presented with a group of singers and musicians that they liked. None of the people had screamed during his talk. They did laugh at the proper moments and clapped loudly at various points during the evening. This event took place beyond the borders of the United States. There were no paid Administration demonstrators attempting to disrupt Christopher’s humble thoughts about war and violence in the world.
The crowd was polite and, for the most part, interested in Christopher’s ideas and concepts. As he sat looking from the window in his room he could see the mass of bodies leaving below the old fashioned sodium-vapor lights surrounding the stadium. He wondered if he had moved any present to change their views on these important subjects he brought with him or if maybe many had just come to hear and see the curious man who had been a political recluse for much of the time while offering his views and efforts to change the direction of violence and war in the world.
He speculated that perhaps he was a curiosity like Joseph Carey Merrick, the Elephant Man, who had been in London over a century before Chris Means had come to Wembley Stadium to share his thoughts. Chris feared that the views he offered may have been seen as deformed as Merrick’s body had been during his public time of humiliation. He now wondered if he had deluded himself into believing that what he had to offer was seen as nothing more than a carnival act by a segment of humanity that had little interest in following his ideas and taking the steps necessary to affect change.
This thought was not critical specifically of the British people present this evening, but possibly of everyone who had come to hear him speak since his time as a college student. Chris was facing a crisis of self-doubt. He had been away too long from those who loved him and wanted to nurture him. As he sat in the semi-darkness of this alien room so far from home his mind drifted back a time earlier in his life when the outside world was becoming aware of his thoughts. The conversation was as clear in his memory as if it had taken place yesterday.