The Lost Child

"It is, of course, easy to imagine what sort of a father such a man would be, how he would bring up his children. And he lived up to expectation: he completely and thoroughly neglected his child by Adelaida. He did not do so out of any deliberate malice or resentment toward the child's mother, but simply because he forgot all about the little boy."

―Fyodor Dostoevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov"

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Dear Kate,

I hate to share movie trailers, but also know without that people probably won't watch the movie at all.

We are too busy to invest in stories we find no value in, not that we are, as Dostoevsky said above, malicious or resentful towards humankind, but we have simply forgotten how: how to be not busy, how to invest our time and attention, how to read stories, how to see value in them.  Our "complete and thorough" neglect is an inevitable train wreck collecting momentum everyday, and at the end we can do nothing but to step back and sigh at the ruins that is our life: It is what it is.

I was thinking about "The Brothers Karamazov" as the film's moral gravity gathered its decisive and incisive pull, and by the time this cryptic image flashed across the screen like an accident, something that just happened to get into the shot when the camera panned to the my next step to find my lost child, I knew I was being summoned by a great artist, called to the altar to confess and repent.

You will know why I am asking when you get a chance to watch the movie, but here's my question: If the smartphone is the greatest thing since sliced bread, what does it say about our perpetual hunger?

No more lives torn apart

That wars would never start

And time would heal all hearts

And everyone would have a friend

And right would always win

And love would never end

Our grown-up Christmas list, we say, childish no more we are.  Well, we have the best things on our hands, the greatest gifts ever given to humankind, technology to connect us with each other instantly and constantly.

Yet still, this deepening hunger.

Yours, Alex