LiveWire

Maynard is a criminal

This is my (Maynard’s, not Tammy’s!) confession. But it’s really nothing more than another personal rambling rant, and you should skip it.

I’ve been reading a book I mentioned in an earlier post: “Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons”. It’s a fascinating tale of how an eccentric tinkerer played a major role in inventing the rocket industry.

Prior to World War II, rockets were regarded by all right-thinking people as less respectable than astrology or phrenology. Rocketry was scorned by all academic institutions. Robert Goddard attempted to discuss the potential, and he was ridiculed to the extent that he became secretive for the rest of his life. Rockets were the stuff of pulp magazines. Then, as now, the world had nothing but punishment for anyone who challenged a political truth.

Jack Parsons was a weird man with a weird dream. He refused to let the world stop him. He showed the world the error of its ways. Ironically, the world rewarded him by elbowing him out of the way in its rush to exploit the pathways he pioneered.

I’m not embracing eccentricity for its own sake. Plenty of eccentric people are merely repulsive, and some are downright dangerous. But out of the eccentrics come the new ideas we need to move forward. A society that crushes its eccentrics is a society without a future.

When I was a child, I was fascinated beyond measure by explosives. The notion of harnessing destructive power was the stuff of dreams. I hasten to add (and this really is true) that my vision was a pure one. I had no desire to hurt people or damage property. I made no demands and I wrote no manifesto. I just wanted the power to create explosions. I wanted to hold that power in my hand.

I guess we’ve all got our crazy childhood fantasies. You dream about them, and then you grow up and put aside these childish things. And I’ve pretty much done that, just like I should. But not straightaway…

When I was 14 or 15, I stumbled across some literature prepared by amateur pyrotechnists. This fueled my fantasies, and I spent my meager allowance money in pursuit of more information. Gathering semi-illicit data of this sort wasn’t easy in those days, prior to the Internet. Over time, I realized that it might actually be possible to accomplish my aspirations.

By the time I was 17, I had my ducks lined up, at least in theory. Formulas, suppliers, a few dollars set aside. Of course I had to operate in secret, knowing that parents and society did not approve. Ordering the more critical components was a tricky business. I had to lie about my age and stick to mail order transactions, relying on postal money orders since I couldn’t write checks. Certain contraband could not be mailed. One particularly critical shipment wasn’t even allowed on the standard alternative carriers; it had to be sent by the Greyhound Bus, which would telephone me when it arrived at the local station. During that interval, I made a particular point of leaping up to answer every phone call, because it was very important that I be the one to answer THE call, or the consequences would have been dire.

Somehow all of this madness came together, and I was, much to my own amazement, ultimately able to construct some really cool explosive devices. These were some of the happiest moments of my warped youthful existence.

I found a couple of similarly-inclined kids at school, and we branched into amateur rocketry. At the peak of our adventures, we were launching home-made bomb-laden rockets into the Pacific Ocean (although it must be admitted that some of them turned around and headed back toward land).

Somehow we were never arrested, never blew ourselves up, never did any real property damage. We didn’t do what we did in pursuit of a political or social goal; we just did it because we loved to do it. We understood that the world intended to stop us if it could; we regarded the world as misguided or even cruel, and we knew we had to carry on in spite of the world.

In noting the world was against us, I also acknowledge that the fact that it was possible for us to operate as we did proves that the world wasn’t entirely against us. That our actions were illegal didn’t prevent us from purchasing the components of our illegal activities. Somebody knew enough to wink at our peccadilloes.

Maybe that’s a reasonable model. The world should offer guidance, but there must be limits to its coercive power. A question, in other words, of balance.

When I was a kid, it was normal for boys to have chemistry sets. And as far as I’m concerned, the main reason to have a chemistry set is to find interesting ways to burn things or blow up things. Isn’t this obvious?

I understand that today the acquisition of chemistry sets is actively discouraged. It’s assumed that a boy with a chemistry set is up to no good. He either wants to burn things or to cook up drugs. So we take away his chemistry set and give him Ritalin™.

I just took a moment to check out how difficult it is to pursue my old recreations. With the Internet, finding stuff is so much easier than it used to be. However, it seems the authorities have caught up with the suppliers. They won’t sell even relatively innocuous items without all sorts of rigmarole and reassurances that you’re officially approved. They’re looking to turn you in to the Authorities.

The balance has shifted. The world, it seems, wants to pummel us into submission more than ever. I shudder to think of what would have become of me had I been born a few years later, when we started drugging our kids. I obviously would have been a prime candidate for the Ludovico technique. Maybe that would have been the best thing for society. Then I wouldn’t be here exchanging these seditious messages.

When I wax poetic, I often get back to this poem. It ends with these lines:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Ah, note the wonderful irony of the chosen metaphor, which I have perhaps interpreted too literally. Yes, I have indeed shown an affirming flame. I’ve created ironic points of light. I’ve done it, and they can’t take that away from me. It seems to me that the pursuit of dreams like these is what life is about. I’ll fight until my last misguided breath not to let them take that dream away from you.