Just another one of us plodding along, getting by in life.

Music: Brahms romance, performed by André Laplante 

Chewbacca as Kierkegaard

R2D2 as Nietzsche

One day he meets a female human, another human survivor, and falls in love. He tries to court her, but she, thinking he is a zombie, keeps screaming and running away. He watches over her and keeps the other zombies from finding her, but cannot speak to her, for the adaptation is too severe. The film basically involves him trying to write love poems to her, but they consist of scribbling lines, such as, “aar… rarrr…aaarr…raaarrrr…glllar,” that he tries to recite to her whenever he sees her, or leaves near her encampment, much to her screaming dismay.

But, I really don’t want to write a zombie movie.

[Theme music. Captain Higliner sits at a table with Gilligan and Ernest Hemmingway, in front of a live studio audience.]

Highliner
Hello, and welcome to another sea-faring adventure in “Fish & Chips & Literature”. Today my guest is none other than that crazy skipper of literature, Ernest Hemingway. Hello, Ernest.

Hemingway
Good day, Captain.

Highliner
Also with us is that crazy first mate, Gilligan. Welcome aboard!

Gilligan
Thank you very much. I’m your greatest fan, Mr. Highliner.

Highliner
That’s Captain Highliner, you barnacle. Now, Ern… an interesting question has popped up, Ern. What exactly drove you to write a story all about a paradoxical theme such as one man’s need in life to seek meaning beyond his ability?

Hemingway
What? I don’t remember writing that.

Highliner
Sure you do! The Old Man and the Sea? The story symbolizes one man’s struggle with his dreams. He seeks the epitome of divinity from nature by trying to attain perfection in the fish he tries to catch.

Hemingway
Uh … I don’t know. I just wrote a story about a big fish, humungous fish, and then this guys… he totally catches it. A really big fish.

Highliner
Yes, but the fish! It’s so much more than a fish! The fish embodies every dream of the Old man. It is his quest for wholeness with the sea, wholeness with the water, wholeness within himself.

Gilligan
Yes! The fish, it is a simple metaphor representing the existential failure to find meaning in life. We all have a fish we seek to catch, it is our “pour soi,” as opposed to our “en soi”. The man was born by the sea, he lived by the sea, and thus he is a part of the sea, and the sea a part of him. He exists, and defines himself through his relationship with the sea. The sea is important to the man, because it doesn’t sum up his existence, it is his existence. And his struggle to catch the fish is his struggle with himself to find a meaning in life, a purpose, a universal essence that sadly, just doesn’t exist.. That’s why you put the sea there.

Hemingway
(Confused.) I had to put the sea there, though, or his boat wouldn’t float well.

Captain Highliner
Ah! Brilliant! It really makes one think: How do any of us travel in life without a boat if we don’t have a boat, we must not have sea. This must mean we are all trapped in a pathetic state where life has no meaning because we cling to false notions, false realities. The Old Man is more alive than any one of us, for he floats upon an ocean, unnoticed by the world around him, defining himself while we landlubbers, who have no ocean, no metaphor for vastness and freedom, remain undefined and meaningless.

Gilligan
I’m intrigued: does this mean that that the meaning of life is found within our quest for the unattainable? The more we strive for an unreachable quest, the more meaning we create for ourselves?

Hemingway
What? I just like fish. I thought it would be neat to catch a big fish. I mean, a really big fish. The biggest fish in the whole world.

Highliner
Ah yes, it all makes sense now! People have not abandoned their will to choose their passions, they are simpiy ignoring it. People do not understand they are always free choose. Consequently, we spend our lives with idle passiveness. The passion, the quest, the struggie with the infinite, the ocean, that brings us any form of purpose, is lost with our contentment with the guppies and minnows of life. The bigger the fish, the greater your pursuit and the greater sense–sense–of purpose you will attain.

Hemingway
I’m getting a sense of *something*, that’s for sure. Listen, you guys, no one has said anything nice like, “The fish thing was really cool, Hemingway,” or, “Wow, that’s a big fish in there!” … You guys didn’t ever read my book, did you?

[Captain Highliner and Gilligan bow their heads guiltily.]

Highliner
Uhrnm … Well, I read the back ….

Gilligan
I read some, but, you know … I mean, I’ve been busy … Un ….

Hemingway
You guys probably don’t even know what a fish is.

Gilligan
Well, just you look here, Mr. Smartypants. Are you insinuating we are not intellectually sophisticated as yourself to understand your writing? Because if you are I’ll march right over there and knock your block off.

Highliner
Gilligan sit down! Be a dignified fisherman: arm-wrestle over it.

[Crowd goes crazy. They arm-wrestle. Gilligan wins.]

Hemingway
OW! OW! My arm! … You’ve broken it! It’s … You’ve broken it off!!!

[Gilligan stands on the Captain's desk, swinging Hemingway's arm above his head triumphantly.]

Gilligan
l’m so proud! This is the same arm that wrote “Moby Dick!!!”

Highliner
Ooh! I’m so intellectually stimulated! Tartar sauce for everybody!!!

[Screams from the crowd. Attendants enter the crowd handing out free gift packs of tartar sauce to ecstatic crowd members.]

Hemingway
So when all’s done, so’s my arm. Life: Is it to speak, or is it to do? Is it to fish, or is it to lose? I will never know the answer, and as I lay here bleeding happily, I think I just have.

[The interview continues for another twenty minutes, with the discussion of fish and chips in Plato's cave.]

Improvisation in e minor:
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