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Saturday, Feb. 18, 2006 / 10:48 p.m. ~Penguins~ Finally, I have now seen "March of the Penguins", thanks to On Demand, and really, if I want, I have a full 24 hours to see it again, as often as I like, but I think once was enough. My head is filled with them, the penguins, the beautiful and mysterious Emperor penguins. Why is their existence so difficult, and is there any joy in it at all? Our narrator, one Morgan Freeman, reads to us a script, at one point including the information that these very same penguins 'play' in the water, and I think 'play'? 'Play'? What play? Where, when, and how on earth? Where is the fun, where are the good times, and how fun can it be not to eat for months on end? I see the supposed 'snuggling' the females and males engage in with one another, but is it fun, is any of it worth the hardship? There must be an easier way for them to exist. It all just seemed so damned sad. The eggs that crack open from the cold of the ice when the transfer from male to female falls short and the ice 'claims' them. The chicks which can't tolerate the cold and succumb instead, and we see their lifeless feathery bodies lying still, gathering snow there on the ice. The voiceover narration tells us the loss is too much to bear, and the mother tries to steal another female's chick, and we realize that life is suffering indeed, and it is hard all over, Antarctic or slum, or even mansion containing inhabitants who never truly find happiness. Which brings us 'round again to wondering just that, is there really such a thing? Isn't it all, with penguins or humans or even the smallest microbial organisms, just about surviving? No real point, just procreation and subsequent survival. But what about those of us not even participating in that most basic function of life? How utterly useless and pointless then are we? Ah, all food for thought there. But my head is filled with penguins right now, and I am picturing their odd shaped bodies, and those little flapping wings that will never help them to fly, but might propel them in the water, where our narrator says they find play, and perhaps a certain joy in at least eating once again, filling bellies to take back to the waiting chicks, to regurgitate and provide sustenance. And maybe in the circle that is all of this, unending, there is joy. For what else would be the point? Cost of the War in Iraq
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