The original Independence Day movie was a huge part of my childhood. Epic. Created a movie star from a favorite sitcom star. Forced me to think about religions other than my own. As the world as a common point.
I still think the only thing that really unite humans is a common enemy. And quiet frankly we are overdue for the figure it out our problems are petty invasion.
Independence Day was triumphant. Heroic. But it was also something else for adolescent Adam. It informed, changed my view, perception or event understanding of something as simple as a hug.
I was 14 going on 15 and blind to so much of the world. Then I spent a week or two (memory is fussy on the details) on a service project at a camp. We probably built fences or something. Or cleaned. Quite frankly as a 14 year old boy, I wasn't that interested. In the work. But my lord, the girls, was I interested in the girls.
I was 14. To me romance was still Back to the Future and maybe a couple episodes of Friends or the ill fated WB sitcom Platypus Man staring Richard Jeni. I knew nothing.
But for this magical period of time, I had a cabin I shared with my friends, work to do, meals all together in the mess hall and members of the opposite sex who I find intoxicating. I was my own real life version of Hey Dude.
It was in this week, I met someone, spend hours talking with them, lay on the merry go round and watched the stars. It was a crash course not in romance but in intimacy or at least opening up to it.
The mission project ended and we all went our separate ways. We promised to write and actually managed to do so for a while. One of the first letters I wrote was after I had returned home and gone to Independence Day with my friends. In my innocence, I wrote something that was oddly profound to me even today. To be fair I only have the letter I received in response. There is no electronic backup for long distance letters of the mid 90s. But my memory and the details of her response uphold the narrative I am about to share.
I was no Romeo or Byron. I wrote little that would inspire Bards to weep and wail. I'm sure I wrote paragraphs about my trip home, things I had done etc. But what I remember and what her response supports is that I went to see Independence Day with my friends. And the triumphant end, with it's reunions of couples and uplifting we are one humanity theme hit me. But what hit me most was how much seeing people hug each other made me miss her. Because we had hugged. We had that connection. And I missed that.
As is my theme eventually we grew apart. School started and I didn't respond to a letter or two. Through my inaction and being 15 we stopped communicating. Years later, probably a decade we connected on Facebook awkwardly, as is the fashion. Barely communicate, as is the fashion. But she was from Chicago, a suburb called Elgin, and is probably likely the reason I am pulling for the Cubs this year.
It's easy to say that innocence made me think I missed the hug. That it was some pre-adult desire. But I will be honest. I miss hugs even today. I miss the way Independence Day made me feel. Missing connection. Wanting that vein of total humanity.
So of course, on Halloween, my least favorite of holidays and with the Vikings creating a new nightmare, I decided to watch a movie. I was already beaten down by the fooseball, so I picked something that I thought would uplift.
Independence Day 2.
Ha. I loved the first movie because I still believed and rooted for good v evil stories. I thought the world was black and white. History was read left to right and set in stone. The original was us against the others.
Maybe I have read too many novels. Maybe I am gullible. But I totally believe in extraterrestrial life. But I'll admit that this past few years have made me doubt it exists.
Not because of aliens or experience. No. Because if there was a superior force waiting to invade, they really couldn't have a better time than now.
We have nuclear weapons all over the globe. We fight against each other in every country in either politics or culture. We beat each other down.
I watched Independence Day 2 and marveled that if there is intelligent live out there...they are totally missing their window.
We are divided. We are fractured. Boy, do we dislike each other.
We don't hug as much as we should.
I expected to watch Independence Day 2 and lament about loss innocence and youth. What I truly lament is that as I watched the movie tonight, people working together felt to much further away. And as a single 35 year old, a hug felt like an enigma. But that connect, that hug, that common bond was still what intrigued and held me.
I pray there is an alien force dumb enough to invade. Because that is the one thing we as a humanity can probably fight together. Not amongst ourselves about creed, or religion or word choice or shape or god or no god. But against a common enemy. My biggest fear is that the superior force, the aliens, learned that we are more a danger to ourselves than they could ever be. So they are just waiting for us to wear the opposition down.
Elections suck. Bad people suck. But the aliens might just be waiting for us to kill each other off. Because they know they can't beat us united. Which will always be our greatest and more powerful skill.
