Forest Gump is a great movie, well-deserving of the Oscars it won… in a year that saw three of the best movies of the 90s all drop at the same time (1994), the other two being Pulp Fiction & The Shawshank Redemption.
Forest Gump is the village idiot who makes good – very good, in fact… as a result of some inherent talent, fortuitous timing and just plain old good luck. The charm of the movie is how innocent and well-meaning he is throughout it all, like he’s an actor just playing a part in his own life’s movie, a life that carries him to loftier and loftier places… and he barely recognizes it.
There’s one particular scene I want to talk about… it’s near the end, when Forest has taken up running, and he’s been running for over three years. Like, literally running… back and forth across the U.S. at least twice, probably close to 20,000 miles.
He’s running from pain and heartbreak… but nobody really knows that… they just start to follow him. Like, clearly… someone with that much passion and dedication; there must be a lot to the story. There isn’t, but that group of followers doesn’t know that, and as time goes on, the group that’s following him, running after him – continues to grow.
Until one day, in the middle of nowhere, Forest’s simple mind just clicks into a different gear. OK, he thinks, I’ve had enough. I’m done. And he stops. And the whole group stops with him, with baited breath and anticipation… “Shh!! He’s gonna say something!!”
Clueless to the moment, and irrelevant in his mind, Forest simply says, “I’m tired. I’m going home.”
And with that, he turns a 180 and starts walking home. And the group that’s been aimlessly following him… now stand around dumbfounded, and one of them yells out, “What are we supposed to do now?”
Indeed, a valid question, when you find yourself rudderless and confused, having realized the ship you’ve been following all this time… also has no compass.
Such is now the emerging dilemma facing a large percentage of the American population who themselves, for over three years, have been following a leader who also has no clue. And so, when that leader did a 180 on certain topics a few days ago, it left a lot of people asking that same question… what about us? Now what?
Yeah, the guy who was feeding you the bullshit about how it’s not serious, how it’s going away, how masks may be evil and, either way, it’s your choice… blahblahblah… how testing is broken because even though we have the best testing in the world, our testing is the best, world leaders are calling me up asking how we do it, they can’t believe our testing, I tell you, it’s a beautiful thing our testing. Experts tell me our testing, they’ve never seen anything like it.
Anyway, as great as the testing is, notwithstanding said leader’s mixed message that perhaps they’re doing too much testing, too good testing, and therefore that’s why there are so many cases… there’s something nobody can argue or justify, and that is the number of deaths. People in the U.S. are dying in record numbers of C19, and there’s no way to avoid telling it how it is. Their leader continually pushed for no masks and ill-timed re-openings, and the emerging results are now laid bare for everyone to consider.
So… it’s caused the fearless leader to backtrack significantly. Perhaps this is worse than I said. Perhaps masks are a good idea.
This is not news to most people, but it’s eye-opening to the sheep who’ve been following him blindly.
“Now what are we supposed to do?”
Well – there’s an answer to that rhetorical question, but I’m as curious as anyone else as to what exactly *will* happen. Stay tuned, I guess.
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Excellent. I’m guessing we now know 3 of your top 5?
Horatio, Outstanding analogy to Forest Gump. I have not read too many articles as well as you have presented during this pandemic. Great readings and please keep it up.
The HK Daily Report (1.28 min read)
Great read again the Forest Gump idea just brilliant.
Simon Mortimer-Lamb
I’m tired, I guess I’ll guess I put on a mask, this China Virus is very tricky.
Too bad he didn’t think about the people instead of just himself when he took the job. A lot of people died because of his selfish ego.
If your previous strategy had you down in the polls…..change it and surprise a few people….
Might work for some unaware…
Let’s all hope that enough people will “do a 180” and reassess what they’ve been so strongly believing in. ????