I find myself saddened by the fact that no one in my present acquaintance is capable of reading or understanding what I write. Most of them, however, are capable of infinitely expanding on their own pedestrian or simply erroneous thoughts. Start them up and they don’t hear a word I say. One of the homeless people I see says, “I don’t want to talk about that,” if it’s not something he brought up. Another says to everything I complain about, “Your point is meaningless. God obviously wants things this way.” Still another, when I mention that Trump’s pole figures have dropped to around 30% looks at me horror struck and says, “That’s not true. Trump is the most popular president we have ever had.” There’s just no outer reality in almost any of the people I know.

But I’m not convinced it’s just the people I happen to know. Last night, out of habit I suppose, I went to the 7:00 o’clock showing of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. I stood in line for hours with my boys to see the original film in Hollywood. The line went around the corner, down the block, around another corner and into a residential neighborhood. There wasn’t one empty seat in the entire theater. And we were wowed.

That was 1977. An entire lifetime ago. And the world changed in ways that are difficult to explain. But the Star Wars World has turned into a kind of arcade world of noise and violence. The people in the audience, both children and adults were bubbling over with excitement. They were laughing and yelling to friends, talking helplessly about themselves. And this roar didn’t stop when the movie began. It subsided when the volume went up, when the shooting and exploding began, and roared again as dialog returned. There were belly laughs at the slightest of jokes, and then the jokes were repeated back and forth until something else caught their attention. Not just the boys in front of me, but the adults as well.

I had the feeling that this movie was four or five TV episodes strung together without commercials. Except very expensive episodes. The audience actually cheered and clapped when things blew up. This movie changed the world in no way whatsoever. The audience raced home, I believe, to watch television. The pace of the movie was frantic, the volume of the audience was frenetic, and not one person in ten had the slightest idea what was happening.

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s not me.