Did you say : CHARLIE ??

CHARLIE CHAPLIN  -  LIMELIGHT             

In  LIMELIGHT, a 1952 film by Charlie Chaplin, an old clown is gently scolding a young girl who had wanted to die. He said : 

“Billions of years it’s taken to evolve human Consciousness, and you want to wipe it out !   What about the miracle of all existence  ? ?   More important than anything in the whole universe…  What can the stars do ?  Nothing !  but sit on their axes…   And the sun  ?  shooting flames 280 000 miles high…  So WHAT ?!    Wasting all its natural resources…   Can the sun  THINK  ??  Is it  CONSCIOUS ??   No, but  YOU  are !!”      

These are the words of an  “unbeliever”  :   a man who was not even   “righteous, saved, hallal or casher”.                                         

Our narrow-minded conceptions of good and bad condemn to hell  such a misbelieving evil-doer, don’t they…?   we call him damned, lost, unsaved, a “goy” or  a “misbeliever” !...   

Yet he was all respect and love for mankind…  and knew how to show it !  He knew how to behave towards what stood beyond him, and show respect, even if he didn’t understand it, nor did he call it any grandiloquent Name… but he respected it and people ! He was never abusive, nor his humour  loathsome  or  foul…   

 All his genius was only LOVE  !      

At first, as men rushed against each other with hatred and anger and guns and signs  -  indignation of an evil that backfires, and shoots no more elsewhere  -  I felt quite sure that I’d never take side of any kind  :  then I remembered this Old Clown, this Tramp, and how though he would be badly labelled and claimed no stamp on him from up above, yet he could turn into pure Light the very blood that flows into our veins and that’s shed into our streets … 

Because he didn’t let his liberty turn sour nor odious … 

Then I say :  “Yes ! Yes ! I can. I must indeed  -  why not say it  : 

I am profoundly and devotedly  CHARLIE !!!   

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