Wanderlino
Arruda
The
dreams of Jules Verne, so beautifully
lived at the turn of the Nineteenth
Century, and then evolving into
the reality of our present days,
are widely read, the French writer
being appreciated today by young
and old alike. Once he had realized
a new idea, his creative impulse
and curiosity satisfied, he would
go on to a new fantasy dream,
a new tentative illusion or calling
to his willful creativity. Intelligence
and art are extremely demanding,
dynamic “par excellence”,
never pausing, and that is what
human progress is made of, as
evolution, it can’t stop,
because if it did, everything
would become immobilized by inertia,
an unsupportable routine, unimaginable
to our evolving tendency, always
ascending, always better. To live
life is to make dreams come true.
Jules Verne was the great dreamer
of things to come, creator of
the concept that “whatever
one man can dream, another man
can then realize”. He envisioned
the television before the radio
was invented, naming it a “phonotelephoto”,
that is, an instrument that can
carry voices and images, connecting
two distant points. He visualized
the helicopter half a century
before man learned to fly. He
presented plans for the construction
of submarines, airplanes, neon
lights, escalators, air conditioning,
skyscrapers, guided missiles,
tanks of war, space food, oxygen
production, and human movement
in the absence of gravity in spacecraft.
He prophesized a whole universe
of fantastic inventions. Without
a doubt, he was the father of
science fiction, a forerunner
of reality, an intuitive medium.
In other words… he was a
prophet.
One
day I had the sensation that I
was feeling very near Jules Verne,
drinking from the spring of his
life of inspiration, and of his
scientific and literary sensibility.
It was one of these confused interpretations
that every mortal occasionally
makes, mainly those like me, distracted
daydreamers, off exploring the
moon in a curious kind of insight,
unfocused, in a special second
of curious opportunism. Once,
meandering in the vicinity of
the Louver museum in Paris, I
saw the banner, “Jules Verne,
Today and Tomorrow”, and
I immediately misunderstood that,
if I didn’t take advantage
of that golden opportunity of
these precious two days, I would
lose an exhibition that was fatally
ending on the next day. I didn’t
think twice. In I went! It was
an exhibition presented by the
Italian car company, Fiat. Everything
was displayed in an extraordinary
manner, with projects, drawings,
instruments, calculating machines
and everything else that the French
writer used to develop his ideal
reality. But there was no indication
determining the ending date of
the exhibition. Everything was
fresh, completely looking as though
it had opened on that very day,
“Today and Tomorrow”
on the banner, actually meant
the “Today and Tomorrow”
of Jules Verne, in his best dreaming
form…
Only
a few times in my life have I
had so powerful a conception of
the enormity of such a magnificent
visionary, of a creative mind
capable of trespassing all barriers
of human mentality. Only a few
times before and after this landmark
exposition have I ever intimately
observed an admiration so great
for natural optimism, confiding
in the ascending logic of evolutional
destiny and the belief of constant
progress into a better world,
worthy of the continuing efforts
of science and poetry. To me,
at that moment, Jules Verne became
the synthesis of the faith that
God deposits in mankind. It is
the guarantee of our future and
its ascending evolutionary trajectory
as part of a divine plan and intelligence.
Jules Verne was present, right
there at that exhibition, through
his incredible life experience,
of a whole universe of research,
simple dreaming of the probable,
the possibilities of historic
invention in human evolution,
an unmistakable moment of respect
for free thought of the valorization
of the right to think and feel.
Wouldn’t
it be good if we could get back
to reading again, reading the
writers of science fiction once
again, searching for comprehension
of the creators of our very own
present and future? In truth,
the present reality is not enough
to satisfy man’s nearly
divine imagination.
