Notes From The Concrete Jungle: The Case For Belief

In early June one event shocked the world more then anything the news agencies were reporting. Screens across America were filled with the sight of a cozy diner, the sounds of a door jingling open and Steve Perry singing “Don’t Stop Believing’,” and then the worse: the screens went black. Total consuming black. Now, no, a blackout didn’t just suddenly roll across America all at the same time. Something far greater just took place: the ambiguous end to one of the nation’s most watched cable programs. To say the public was upset would be putting it mildly. To say the nation was in a total uproar, well, that might be a little closer to the truth. See, we love endings. That’s why we love sports and wars and lottery winners. We love the completeness that comes from knowing that there’s an end, a clear-cut, finality to it all. Yet, the nation’s beloved television program didn’t offer that. It offered a far greater lesson though: Belief. Since I was a child I was taught to believe in something greater than myself, an embrace of the unknown if you will. Something out there was bigger and greater than myself, and if I prayed (or thought) hard enough, then the wishes and desires I wanted would come true. Thus the seed of faith (or hope, or belief) was born into me. Now, cynics will say - and have said - there’s no need for belief in a world of numbers and logic. After all, one look at a series of numbers and the answers to the world’s largest problems can supposedly be solved. The national debt is into the trillions, so if person A. pays this much and person B. pays this much, etc., etc., the national debt will eventually be repaid. This is the way of numbers and logic and how we live much of modern lives. Nevertheless, not everything can be solved by numbers and logic. Sometimes, we need something greater then ourselves to understand the problem. We still need belief, in ways great and small. Belief in a better world and the better natures of Man - large. Belief in finding a date for the party on Saturday night - small. Belief is weaved into our very fabric. Our forefathers once believed and hoped for a greater future. I believe, for the most part, we’ve got it. Now it’s our turn to believe in a greater tomorrow for our children and our children’s children. Perhaps it’s time to put aside our total reliance on numbers and logic and throw a little more towards belief. Maybe, just maybe, we should step outside the conventional and into the unknown. To paraphrase a popular slogan: To think outside the known. Besides, doing so taps into another primal human desire: the need for adventure and risk. Is Tony Soprano dead? Perhaps. Perhaps not. If nothing else, Mr. Chase - the show’s creator, writer and director - has challenged us. He’s forcing us to reexamine our understanding of the known and the unknown. In essence, we need to return to believing - before our own screens cut quickly to black.

Texas