Last Call

*Sigh* Arthur C. Clarke died yesterday, having been on this Earth for 90 years. That’s a good run, but it wasn’t long enough. Then again, it never is.

Clarke was one of the first science fiction authors I ever read. I became interested in the genre after my father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was a child - and, yes, to date myself, I saw the film in its first run. Soon after that, I persuaded my father to buy me the book and, though I wouldn’t fully understand it until I’d had a chance to do a little more growing up, it did capture my imagination.

The man was certainly a giant in his field but, more important than that, he was a dreamer, and that is perhaps his most important legacy. He once famously said, "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong." He also said, "The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

He was a dreamer, indeed, and he inspired others to dream, and through those flights of fancy pushed us all to a greater understanding of ourselves. If, by chance, you’ve been living under a rock and have never read any of his material, do yourself a favour and get one of his books. Even if its just 2001, read it and ponder the character of HAL, a most human of characters. HAL, the super-intelligent A.I., the perfect expression of machine intelligence, who did the things he did because he was afraid. How different, I wonder, is that from you or I?

We are the stuff of our dreams, for we possess the power to give them form and purpose. We create because we dream, because we give substance to the ethereal fancies of our thought, and thus we have the power to inspire others to create even greater realities through our gift of kindling the imagination. What a terribly dull place the world would be if it were otherwise.

Goodnight, Sir Arthur. Sleep now, and dream well.