We don't know one another like we think we do

By TOM EHRICH

c.1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of "On a Journey," daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)

UNDATED -- Even the smartest people get surprised sometimes.

Take, for example, Viagra, the new anti-impotence pill made by Pfizer Inc. Before the ad blitz even begins, the $10-a-pill drug is selling at the rate of 40,000 prescriptions a day, second only to the antidepressant Prozac and far beyond the pharmaceutical industry's expectations.

Or take "Titanic," the Oscar-winning film and all-time box office smash. Who would have guessed a story where everyone knows the ending would become an international phenomenon? How many pre-teen girls can dance on a dream about Leonardo DiCaprio?

Or take the American public's non-response to the alleged peccadilloes of President Clinton. Conservatives thought they had a winner on their hands -- a "Titanic," as it were, for sinking a presidency they loathe. But so far, voters are yawning.

Chaos theorists will say, "Well, of course." Surprise is the very essence of reality. Even the best-laid plans spin out of control. We can't predict much in a natural order dominated by uncertainty.

But I sense something else is going on, as well. It appears we don't know each other as well as we thought.

Once talk-show jokesters get over Viagra's opportunities for wit, the fact will remain: Many men are frustrated with their sexual performance. Some will scoff at male libido problems. But what the Viagra phenomenon suggests is a yearning and a sadness going beyond the usual suspects to a large pool whose quiet desperation runs deeper than anyone guessed.

Others will scoff at teeny boppers whose need to swoon has already carried Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Beatles to shriek-surrounded fab-dom. But the success of "Titanic" goes beyond crushes on Leonardo. This movie's explosive success, along with the instant and totally unexpected flop of the film "Primary Colors," suggests Hollywood doesn't know its audience. That isn't a knock on Hollywood, as much as it is a prevailing mystery about who we are.

Is "Titanic" the ultimate in escapist fare? Are we, as every serious playwright has believed, instinctively drawn to tragedy? Are date-flicks back in vogue? Or does this film simply prove the people-as-sheep theory: Start a line, and people will stand in it?

I don't think we know. And that's the point. We can predict Hollywood will start churning out romantic disaster epics, but beyond that, it's all surprise.

Clinton-haters, of course, know that already. The public's non-response to the presidential libido is bewildering to them. Has Kenneth Starr not subpoenaed enough bookstore receipts? Is the "liberal media" protecting one of its own? What will it take to turn revelation into revolution?

It could be that people just don't care. Give us enough Viagra and movie tickets, and we'll tolerate anything. But I don't think that's it.

My guess is that out here -- beyond the Beltway -- people have more important things on their minds than Zippergate. People are more serious about life than the showmen of Washington or Hollywood think. People are struggling -- happily some days, despairingly others -- to deal with rapidly changing realities like their employers' uncertain prospects, the widely expected demise of Social Security, new job skills, children growing up, divorce, fear, illness and retirement.

People, in fact, are living -- not just drifting in entertainment and consumer fancies, but actually living, taking each day seriously. Look at the boarded-up stores at popular malls. Look at the full parking lots at even the supposedly moribund mainline houses of worship. Look at our darkened TV sets and empty baseball parks. Look at the Saturday throngs at Barnes & Noble bookstores.

We are a surprise to each other. Try as they might to fit us into molds serving their purposes, the merchants of predictable behavior run aground on the amazing force of human freedom.

Kenneth Starr will discover, as Sen. Joseph McCarthy did before him, that people can't be goaded beyond the limits of common sense, at least not for long.

Hollywood will discover tastes are fickle and might even be loftier than they imagine. And as Viagra has its heyday in America's bedrooms, maybe we all will realize that sadness, impotence and tragedy are essential to the human experience.

Knowing we aren't all-powerful and god-like is the precondition for being human.