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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, May 16, 2004

COMMENTARY
If Utopia beckons, will we be too busy to hear?

By C. Ikehara

"And, most precious of all, you will have Time — that rare and lovely gift that your Western countries have lost the more they have pursued it."

— Shangri-la's High Lama

When I read Vicki Viotti's article "Scarcity making handmade lei a labor of love" (May 2), I couldn't believe that something as traditional as lei making is in danger of dying out because most of us find our 21st-century lifestyles leave us with too little time to learn, practice and master such a beautiful art form.

On that very same day was Mike Leidemann's article "Waikiki banquet hall serves last meal," which reported on the closing of Waikiki's House of Hong, which opened 40 years ago. According to founder Raymond Hong's daughter, a reason for the closing is that "... people no longer have the time ... for eight-course dinners that last for hours."

Going beyond local happenings, those articles reminded me of columnist Ellen Goodman's March 11 column "Not enough time for nuances," where voters who are against Bush seem not interested in what Kerry "... believes, but whether he can explain it in less than 10 seconds ..."

And that article reminded me of Kathleen Parker's earlier column "2003: Phffft! What was that?" (Jan. 5), which pointed out that in a society where we seem to be bombarded around the clock by conflicting facts and statistics from all manner of sources, we are left with "... little time to properly frame an image or capture a reflective thought."

Aren't we finding that the accelerated pace of our lives is preventing us from being able to recognize, understand and even think about the important issues (e.g., political, social, economic) of the day in all their complexity, subtlety and ambiguity? And that some of those issues can have shades-of-gray implications that we should not fail to fully acknowledge, thoroughly analyze and even contemplate at length?

Could there be a danger looming on the horizon that we are just too busy to notice?

The discovery a few years ago of a hidden lush subtropical garden in the Tibetan Himalayas has made even skeptics wonder if the Shangri-la of James Hilton's 1933 novel "Lost Horizon" (which introduced the word to the world) might be more than just another dream-like utopia.

A new, more knowledgeable generation will now read "Lost Horizon" and realize how much less Hilton's tale can truly be called escapist (a criticism he had to defend against), how its pacifist vision can serve less to intoxicate their youthful minds than to stimulate and possibly inspire them to work toward the realization of its ideal of tolerance and moderation.

I have read that estimates indicate it is likely more people died of warfare during the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined — times three. Shouldn't that be viewed as a dangerous trend? And in these times when few can afford to spend the time to read anything more than once — much less spare a few moments to reflect on whether what they have just read may affect their lives or their futures — could the ever-accelerating pace of our lives be blinding us to the very real possibility that we may be madly rushing toward disaster, destruction or even self-destruction if we do not alter our direction or at least slow down our pace?

Having emerged from the most violent century in the history of mankind, shouldn't we survivors be concerned that the future not repeat the horrors of the past? If mankind continues on its present course, wouldn't the eerie and grim prophecies of Shangri-la's High Lama as to what awaits us seem less remote, if only we would stop for a moment to consider what we may have lost sight of just beyond the horizon?

"The airman bearing loads of death to the great cities will not pass our way, and if by chance he should, he may not consider us worth a bomb ... It will be such a storm as the world has not seen before. There will be no safety by arms, no help from authority, no answer in science. It will rage till every flower of culture is trampled, and all human things are leveled in a vast chaos.... The Dark Ages that are to come will cover the whole world in a single pall; there will be neither escape nor sanctuary, save such as are too secret to be found or too humble to be noticed...."

Shouldn't the message (if not warning) of "Lost Horizon" be reflected upon and even possibly adopted (or at least taken more seriously) in the 21st century? Is it a matter of waking up to the reality that the pace of our lives cannot be sustained without causing us to start going off course? Or is it more a matter of simply growing up and realizing that the abandonment of the contemplative life will cause us to lose sight of the wisdom of accepting limits?

As Shangri-la's High Lama says, "We have a dream and a vision ... We have a heritage to cherish and bequeath."

C. Ikehara is semi-retired and lives on O'ahu.