I thought I would take a small break from Genesis to talk about the philosophy of promoting reality over imagination. This week I went to see the movie Mr. Holmes starring Ian McClellan. In the story, Holmes is an old man at the end of life, experiencing chronic forgetfulness, fearing approaching senility. He wants to remember his last case and write what really happened, instead of the fictional account that Watson wrote.
While he is trying to remember, he becomes involved with the lives of his housekeeper and her son. The boy admires Holmes and encourages him to recall the past and write the story. The past and the present converge in a crisis. Holmes finally remembers that his last case ended tragically because he placed more importance on facts, logic, and reality than on human feeling and imagination.
At the end of the movie, Holmes finds redemption in telling someone a pleasant fiction that will heal an old pain, instead of the more hurtful truth, which he was in the habit of speaking regardless of the consequences. He also begins to consider the needs of his housekeeper and her son above his own, unlike his previous relationships with Watson and Mrs. Hudson.
This movie got me thinking. I am a very fact oriented person and have been chafing at the restrictions imposed on my ability to speak freely in public about atheism and the bible, because of circumstances of life and personal relationships. At times I wonder why I don't just be brutally honest and take whatever losses may occur. Then I think about how lonely it can be to be right at all costs. That was the lesson Holmes learned.
So, I write this blog instead.
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