Significance

“Let’s move this along, I’m already late,” said Dan irritably.

“Really?” said Ben, looking up from his notes.

“No,” said Dan.  “But I assume you’ll be leaving soon.”

“I’m in for the evening,” Ben said.  

“You’re not at home,” said Dan.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ben said, turning back to his work.  

His half of the table was covered in college-ruled loose leaf sheets of paper.  Some had started to creep towards Dan, and Ben had twice stooped to pick a few scrabblers off the floor.

“So I see,” said Dan.  “What is all that?  It looks like a paper.”

“It is a paper,” said Ben.

“Since when do you write long hand?” Dan asked.  The pages were all covered with neatly-printed handwriting in blue ink.

Ben glanced at his friend but didn’t reply.

“So whose is it?” asked Dan.

“Someone very lucky,” said Ben.

“How so?” asked Dan.

In answer, Ben searched for a moment, picked up a page near the bottom left corner of the heap, and handed it to Dan.  Dan accepted it in his free hand while holding and drinking from his glass of beer with the other.  His eyebrows shot up as he read the page over.

“They’re doing an essay on--” Dan finished the sentence with the name of a popular motion picture that had been released the previous year.

“Give the man a medal,” said Ben.  “You can read after all.”

“It got too hard to keep faking,” said Dan.  “How come we didn’t get to write papers like this when we were in school?”

“We are still in school,” said Ben.

“Only by proxy,” said Dan.

Ben shrugged.  “Professors are cooler now?”

Dan looked skeptical.  “We had great professors, they probably would have been okay with an essay like this, if we could give a good reason for it.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what this person did,” said Ben.

“So how come we didn’t write anything like this?” asked Dan.

Ben shrugged again.  “No guts,” he said.

“No inspiration,” said Dan musingly.

“It also helps,” said Ben, “that the movie only just came out recently.”

“There is that,” said Dan.  “But we had good movies when we were in school.”

“True,” said Ben.  “But I feel like they were less important.”

“Maybe,” said Dan.

Ben continued to pour over the large mat of sheets.  Without looking up he removed another from a folder in his lap and lay it in an empty place on the table.

“Why do we need to look at all the pages at once?” asked Dan.

“I’m trying to sort out an overall structure,” said Ben thoughtfully.

“Is this the only copy?” said Dan, putting his nearly empty beer glass down on one of the pages that had crossed to his side.

“No,” said Ben, snatching the page free and almost tipping the glass over before Dan caught it.  “I ran a copy off this afternoon for safety.  But this is the original.”

“So what do they want you to do with it?” asked Dan.

“For starters,” said Ben dryly, not looking up, “they wanted me to help them nail their overall structure.”

“Hm,” said Dan.  He wished he had something he could be busy with.  Instead he got up, came back with two beers, but kept both on his side of the table.  Ben didn’t seem to notice.

“They’ve got some solid insights,” Ben said.  “But they could be a lot clearer with what they’re saying.  Their points just don’t quite add up to what they’re trying to argue yet.”

“What are they trying to argue?” said Dan.

“That western civilization,” said Ben lightly, “is collapsing.”

Dan nodded thoughtfully.  “What?” he said a moment later.

“They’re arguing that this movie is a sign,” said Ben, “that society as we know it is heading down the drain.”

“I liked that movie,” said Dan.

“So did I,” said Ben.  “And they’re not saying it was a bad movie.  They’re not even saying that it’s a movie that could only be made while society is collapsing, they sort of go through a lot of extra effort to point that part out.”  He halted, and turned one of the uppermost pages on his grid over.  “I think maybe they should cut that, actually.”

“So how is it causing the collapse of civilization then?” said Dan.

“It’s not causing the collapse,” said Ben.  “It’s just a sign that the collapse is underway.”

“Tomato tomato,” said Dan, pronouncing it differently one of the times it was said (that line doesn’t actually work in print).

“The argument,” said Ben, “is that in a society that wasn’t undergoing a collapse, the movie wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular a success as it was.”

“Thriving societies don’t like good movies?” said Dan.

“It has something to do with tragedies, actually,” said Ben.  “They’re a little muddled, I’m trying to reason it out.”

“I thought it was funny,” said Dan.

“Not the movie,” said Ben.  “Tragedies in general.  When was the last time you saw a good tragedy?”

Dan thought.  “Made recently?” he said.

“Yeah,” said Ben.

Dan thought some more.  “Does it have to be popular?” said Dan.

“This is my point,” he said.

“Their point,” said Dan.

“Their point,” agreed Ben.

They both thought about it.  Ben rose and returned with a beer.  He put it on Dan’s side of the table, and it was pushed back.  They thought some more.

“The closest thing I can remember to a popular tragedy,” said Dan after a while, “is that comic book movie from a few years back, the one where you thought he was going to save the people, but they actually mostly died.”

“You mean the one with the hero they deserved--” said Ben.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Dan.  “It wasn’t a completely happy ending.”

“Unless you were rooting for the bad guy,” said Ben.  “I feel like with that one you were supposed to be rooting for the bad guy.  He got all the best lines.”

Dan shrugged.  “Then I’ve got nothing.  Why is tragedy important?”

“The short version seems to be,” said Ben, “that a people who can’t handle sad endings can’t take life seriously.”

Dan shook his head violently as if under attack.

“You disagree,” said Ben.

“It doesn’t follow at all,” said Dan.

“How so?” said Ben mildly.

“First of all,” said Dan, “who are they comparing us to with all this tragedy, the ancient Greeks?”

“It’s not as clearly argued as I’d like,” said Ben.  “But it starts with them, they also mention Shakespeare and opera in a sort of general way.”

“The short version,” said Dan, “is that we go to movies for completely different reasons than the Greeks went to theater.”

“How so?” said Ben.

“I go to the movie to escape from life for a while,” said Dan.  “Not to get an emotional release and feel cleansed, or whatever.”

Ben shrugged again.  “They might argue that that’s another one of the symptoms,” he said.

“Do they argue that?” said Dan.

“Not really,” said Ben.

“Ha,” said Dan.  “They’re two different things, American movies and ancient Greek theater.  Apples and oranges.”

“But you’ve got to admit,” said Ben, “it seems a little one-sided nowadays, compared to how it used to be.”

“What seems a little one-sided?” said Dan.

“The way stories end,” said Ben.  “They all have happy endings.”

“Not a fan of independent films I see,” said Dan.  “Two out of three of those things will just wreck you for no reason.”

“The stories that everyone knows and likes, then,” said Ben.

“How do we know that Shakespeare wasn’t an independent filmmaker?” said Dan.

“Apart from the invention of the camera being several hundred--” said Ben.

“You know what I mean,” said Dan.  “Who says his stuff was wildly popular in its day?”

“Literary historians,” said Ben.

“What do they know?” said Dan.  “Happy endings are more popular.  They make you feel happy, and people listen to stories to feel happy.”

“Mostly,” said Ben agreeably.  “Moreso now than before I’d say.”

“They’d say,” said Dan, nodding to the papers.

“They’d say,” agreed Ben.

They thought some more.  Dan finished one glass and started the other.  At last Ben took out a red pen and began making notes.

“Got an idea?” said Dan.

“I think so,” said Ben, circling and noting a paragraph and then searching through the sheets for another page and circling a paragraph on it.

“I was thinking the other day,” said Dan.  “Being a university student might be the best paid job there is.”

“You wanna run the math on that one by me,” said Ben.  “When I went to school they made me pay to go.”

“As they do now,” said Dan.  “But think about it: what is value?”

Ben looked up at his friend with a weary expression.

“Value,” said Dan, feeling that he should keep moving forward, “is whatever you find to be useful.  The more use you can get out of a thing, the more valuable it is to you.”

Ben considered this.  “Probably not without exceptions,” he said, “but I can see what you mean.  This can opener was a bargain, still works great after ten years, the list goes on.”

“Right,” said Dan.  “Or that computer’s overpriced, it can do exactly what this other one does at half the price, and so forth.”

“So the information is valuable?” said Ben.

“Exactly,” said Dan.  “You pay your money, sure, but you get so much in return.”

“What’s that?” said Ben.

“The socially acceptable position of student,” said Dan.  “The only time in your life when your time is one hundred percent your own, and no one judges you for how you use it.”

“No one judges me,” said Ben.  “Or I don’t notice.”

“You know what I mean,” said Dan.  “Things are never as good once you’re done being a student.  You pay money to go, sure, but the main thing is the time, and you’re free to spend that wisely or not.  You get to find your own way.”

“You can get useful information,” said Ben.

“And experiences,” said Dan.

“And experiences,” said Ben, “or not, if you like.”

“It’s like you get to pay a cover charge,” said Dan, “to go in the big room where there’s all this money on the floor.  And you get to keep whatever you can pick up.”

“So the trick is to pick up more than you pay to get in,” said Ben.

“That’s a very un-Ben thing for you to say,” said Dan.

“What should I have said,” said Ben.

“You should have said,” said Dan, “that the trick is not to mind the cover charge, and pick up the money that’s most valuable to you, somehow.”

“I would never say that,” said Ben.  He made a final note and started packing up his papers.

“I was waiting for you to mention that book we were talking about,” said Dan.  “Did you finish it yet?”

“Which book?” said Ben.

“The one you said you didn’t like,” said Dan, “but wouldn’t quit reading.”

“Oh that book,” said Ben.  “Still working on that one.”

“Really working on it?” said Dan.  “Or sick of hearing about it?”

“Really working on it,” said Ben.  “I was reading it last night, I’ve got about one-sixth still to go.  It’s getting interesting, such as it is.”

Dan made the face of someone surprised and pleased, but not completely without a sense of derision.

“I’ll let you know what I think when I’m finished,” said Ben.

“Please do,” said Dan.

“I still don’t like it,” said Ben.

“Of course not,” said Dan.  He picked up his books and made ready to leave.

“What are you working on?” asked Ben.

“Nothing at the moment,” said Dan.  “I spent the day in the university library.”

“You can’t check anything out without being a student,” said Ben.

“You don’t need to check anything out,” said Dan, “when you stay there all day.”

“Don’t you have bills to pay?” said Ben, shouldering his bag and rising.

“I’m ahead,” said Dan as they walked towards the door.  “Two jobs last week.”

“Not putting it in savings or anything,” said Ben.

“Gather ye rosebuds,” said Dan.