GryphonShafer.com
Greetings. This site is just a place I occasionally toss stuff and things about which I'm interested. I'm a serial entrepreneur, software engineer, movie theater owner, book writer/editor/publisher, pastor, geek, father, husband, and human. I think a lot about philosophy, bicycling, flying, sailing, theology, parenting, current events, predictioneering, financial investing, ethics, and other stuff and things.
Good Story Doesn't Stale with Time
April 23, 2011
It has been in fact not quite but nearly two years since I wrote anything on this little blog. A lot has happened in that time: the Earth completed nearly two orbits around the sun, spinning hundreds of times in the process. On that little ball, I experienced too many stories to recount. (One should not conclude by my failure to mention any given story that I consider it any less important than those mentioned. Like any personal and mostly pointless blog, this is a stream-of-consciousness post, predominately unedited. Certainly not well thought-out.)
Over the past two years, Xander grew from a loving and meek 7-year-old into a loving and risk-taking 9-year-old entrepreneur. 
He opened a lemonade stand on a particularly hot summer day and raked in over $12 an hour. Considering he kept his costs to a minimum by having mommy provide supplies and daddy provide the storefront (an open tent covering), he had good ROI. He pondered new and inventive ways to advertise, and for the rest of the summer was noting the positive and negative market impact of other beverage venues in the area.
Sharalyn and I got a couple years older; maybe, hopefully, a couple years wiser. We decided to expand our family from three to four; and soon (perhaps very soon), our fourth member of the family will arrive on scene. We started a book publishing company, and Sharalyn took over day-to-day operations of the business. Our church started and grew a bit, and we’re participating in several routine ministries. I led an apologetics course at the district camp meeting, and this year will be leading two (one on theology). We’re still living in quiet and scenic Port Orchard, Washington. We’re still making improvements to our home. We’re still doing the church thing. We’re still working, growing, learning; being what we’re called to be.
We are blessed beyond what we deserve. The drama and adventures in our lives seem to be all self-imposed, excitement we elect to encounter rather than crises involuntarily thrown upon us. There’s no such thing as the idyllic life; not totally, not outside of the odd Hallmark TV-movie. Still, as much as I think it possible, we have something close to that life.
So then why would I want to own a movie theater business that has regularly lost money in recent history?
I remember fondly watching E.T. in the movie theater as a child. There’s a scene near the beginning of the film where the little alien is wandering at night through an old forest with gigantic trees. John Williams swells the symphony and Spielberg casts only enough light to capture blue-gray shapes, daunting even to we who are fully aware trees (unlike those from Tolkien’s Middle Earth) won’t come alive and attack. I remember being so scared I would squeeze shut my eyes and plug my ears, counting in my head to 10 slowly before reengaging the story. I kept going back, watching the movie over and over; and finally, I was able to watch the opening sequence. (There’s a scene much later on when guys in space suits break into the Elliot’s suburban home. That I was never able to watch in the theater.)
I remember watching The Empire Strikes Back and wanting so intently to be Luke or Han. The closest thing in our world seemed to be an astronaut, and so began my obsession with NASA and space exploration. That led to my love of astronomy. And that led to my love of physics, science, mathematics, computer science, technology, and eventually into a career as a software engineer.
I remember a scene from the Last Starfighter, just after Alex decides to return to Earth and refuse the call to adventure. Centauri, an alien masquerading as some sort of washed-up talent scout for the Star League, reluctantly takes Alex home, and before leaving him be, tosses him a means to make an interstellar phone call in case Alex changes his mind. Alex, about ready to decline, says he’s just a kid from a trailer park. And in one of the greatest dialog gems of all time, Centauri retorts, “If that’s what you think, then that’s all you’ll ever be.”
That had profound impact on me, that one little and seemingly simple line. It didn’t matter where I came from; it mattered what I did, what I decided to do. If I thought I was just some average (maybe even below-average) guy from a northern desert town, then that’s all I’d ever be. But if I took a leap of faith, if I took risks, if I accepted the call to adventure...
Movies are a medium for communicating story. And as Joseph Campbell and the legion of Campbell-inspired storywriters will tell you, a good story can inspire and instruct better than nearly any other means of instruction. From great story, I witnessed courage, identified a career, and became inspired to develop character. It’s one thing to tell my son to be courageous and to be of strong character. It’s another to let him experience E.T., Empire, and Starfighter and come to his own epiphanies.
Some movies I saw when I was too young and therefore didn’t quite understand. It wasn’t until college before I really began to realize why Lawrence of Arabia is the greatest film ever written. It wasn’t until I matured a bit before I heeded the warning of Citizen Kane or accepted the lesson of never giving up from Rocky. We need the right story at the right time. A great story doesn’t become less valuable because it isn’t in a newly released first-run film. A great story, and thereby a great movie cinema experience, is just as powerful 20 or 40 or 60 years after its first telling as it was upon its debut. I want to give my son and soon-to-arrive daughter the opportunity to see Casablanca, Star Wars, High Noon, Princess Bride, Blade Runner, Doctor Zhivago, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and others in the theater (once each child reaches the mommy-ordained age-appropriateness for the given movie).
So why not just watch these movies at home?
Watch the sunrise in the first part of Lawrence, the Star Destroyer in the first scene of New Hope, and Princess Bride (the whole film) by yourself in front of the best home video system you can find. Then come watch them at my cinema.
Read the full-text of the Good Story Doesn't Stale with Time entry »
