Page 28 - 2022-11
P. 28
GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE
I am NOT a Dinosaur
Paul C. Fanning, DTM
I think there must be something organically the climax of the movie in the island’s visitor’s
wrong with me—or at least I feel there must be. center where the banner “When Dinosaurs Ruled
Perhaps a round of expensive tests will resolve the Earth” comes fluttering down to be trampled
my feeling of dread that I sense at times. Better upon as the T-Rex defeats the Raptors allowing
yet, an overly paid therapist might do the trick. our heroic characters to escape. The end. Roll
I do not know the answer, nor have the credits.
training to definitively declare me of sound But that is not the dinosaur I am referring
mind. Yet IT is there, gnawing away at the back to, or feel I am becoming. No, not at all. I am
of my brain, forcing me to postulate or even not suddenly growing a bigger head, developing
wonder whether, indeed, I have turned into a a taste for raw (and somewhat bloody) meat,
dinosaur. Yes, me, a modern dinosaur, walking waving my little stumpy T-Rex arms before me.
on two legs, but with a small brain with limited No, I am talking about what one develops into
functions. Thus, a has been, soon to be discarded when one becomes a Toastmasters dinosaur—
and hopefully admired from afar in picture truly a more chilling and fearful thought than
books and dusty museums, a distant memory. a physical metamorphosis. The Greeks referred
I do have a love of movies. Michael Crichton to it as “ametanoia,” or a lack of changing one’s
penned the book Jurassic Park, and I read it when mind—either spiritually or psychologically.
it first came out in 1990 before the movie in 1993. It is the process whereby one is aware of the
How, I often wondered, did a brilliant surgeon need to change, but refuses, and by doing so,
like Crichton craft such a tale of re-creating hardens the mind (or brain) until one is so
dinosaurs sixty-five million years after their far behind in progress and thought they just
demise came about? He did it to “relax” from his stagnate and become totally useless. Unable to
daily job, to eventually become more famous function within normal parameters becomes a
in his “hobby” than his avocation. But to me, dinosaur and cannot see the huge meteor come
the sum of the incidents in the book and movie crashing to earth and renders all life void. Thus,
were all rolled into one with the major scene at a Toastmasters dinosaur is one that cannot
28 ONE COMMUNITY
