The Quest

Chris Carter the creator of The X-files is a modern day Shakespeare – poet and prophet. I first watched his program many years after it had gone into syndication. I was up late one night, as I often am, and I turned on the TV, as I usually do. This lunatic was chasing a human size fluke worm through the sewers of Boston or someplace. Following him was a stunning redhead, brilliant and clearly his keeper. I finished that episode and watched the next two. I was instantly addicted.

I don’t like Science Fiction. I am a realist in my own work and have very little use for fantasy. It took me a while to figure out why I was so enamored of The X-Files. One morning around 3 am, in the middle of my fifth episode, I got it. The X-Files isn’t Science Fiction at all; it is a contemporary morality play with many layers of meaning similar to Hamlet. The aliens, alien abductions, super solders, black helicopters and government conspiracies are metaphors fused together in a mythology to form a field of ideas for Carter’s Knight Errant, Fox Mulder, to pursue a quest for the Holy Grail – in this case the Truth.

Carter consistently reminds us that “The Truth is Out There.” While Mulder speaks of it as if it is more than human, less than divine, a living, breathing entity waiting and sure to return. In his estimation Truth has been relegated to the darkness by a pack of bold liars operating in unison.

Like all great writers Carter routinely engages in prophecy. It is the mark of his kind of genius to be able to stare at the past and see through it to the future. He certainly glimpsed ours. Today we are inundated with liars and they truly have no trepidation about the truth. They seem to believe that if they deceive, dissembled and distort well and long enough the Truth will never be seen again.

It is the Grail Quest of every reasonable, caring and thoughtful person on the Left, in the Middle, and on the Right – if there are any still in attendance – to call, invite, pray for, go out and seek the Truth. The liars would have us believe that they can better protect our future and the future of our children. They cannot. The prevaricators would have us trust them to protect this Planet. We must not. Their sword is greed, their standard hate, their avatar apathy to anything other than their own self interest. They breed corruption and decay. They care more for the smallest bill in their wallet then they care for all of humanity.