Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Captain Power
Most of what I really need to know about how to live and what to do, and how to be, I learned from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the wasteland of the future Earth.
These are the things I learned:
Share everything. Like juicy oranges. But not canteens of water that you find laying in dark, abandoned tunnels.
Play fair. Except when a member of your team drinks from a canteen of water he finds in a dark abandoned tunnel and goes berserk. Then it's okay to bend the rules just a bit until you can subdue the aforementioned teammate and find a cure for him.
Don't hit people. Our prime goal, what we're all about, is to preserve life. Now, biomechs and BioDreads are not people, so it's okay to hit, toss, shoot at and dismantle them.
Put things back where you found them. We've all learned our lesson from the canteen of water, right?
Clean up your own mess. Otherwise other people - or computers - will step in and do it for you. They have visions of how it should be. Visions that involve a new order.
Don't take things that aren't yours. Like canteens of water. Or someone's vision. Or spillover when someone enters the web. And especially someone's mind.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Like Athena. She might have been a bit wacko, but she still remembered to say she was sorry for hurting Jonny.
Wash your hands before you eat. Especially when someone you don't know gives you a nice juicy orange.
Flush. The world outside is already a mess. Why make your living quarters bad too?
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Just like those real oranges. Share them with your friends because once you're inside the machine, you won't get to have them anymore.
Live a balanced life. Be happy. Be sad. Be angry. But most of all, be human. Don't simply undulate and expect everyone else to supply your every need.
Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Even soldiers need to take a break from the war and have some munchies, mineral water and a dance or two.
Take a nap every afternoon. Unless you're plagued by visions of your father, who was caught in an explosion while trying to rescue you. Then, maybe naps aren't such a good idea.
When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. You never know when someone is out there, waiting to shoot knockout gas at you.
Be aware of wonder. Wonder why there are locked doors in places that are supposed to be refuges. Wonder why there are big sealed drums inside those locked doors. Wonder what those symbols are on the big sealed drums. Share your thoughts with your friends. You never know what you'll find.
Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we. Eventually. But until they've got a body and have proven it's a particular someone by extensive DNA testing, there's a chance she's still alive. A very good chance.
And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: look. Around corners, in case there's a biomech waiting to pick you off. Behind discarded pieces of metal, where someone carrying the plague could be hiding. Deep inside yourself, to know that you really are human, with flesh and blood. Don't fight it. It will set you free.
Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and sane living. Even computers can explain love, as long as the form of love is specified. But sometimes, after a long day, it's just not possible to be sane anymore. That's when you wait for the bigger things in life to arrive and carry your troubles away.
Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together. And Power On!
Author's Note: This was just something fun and silly I wrote awhile ago. It is meant with no disrespect whatsoever to Mr. Robert Fulghum.