IN A CLASSIC SCENE in an old Charlie Chaplin film, the viewer sees Chaplin casually leaning against a massive brick wall. Then something gets his attention, and he steps away. Without him there to lean against it, the whole wall comes crashing down. If nothing else, the scene shakes up one's preconceived notions about what upholds what — and what sustains what.
Flash forward to a more recent scene from a true story. Although not captured in a movie (so far as I know), this scene comes alive through the words and photos of journalists. We see a dad and his physically handicapped — but mentally alert — son. The dad pushes his wheelchair-bound son through a marathon, one of more than 80 they have run together. But as the two of them talk (the son with mechanical assistance), the father, surprisingly, credits the son with saving his (the father's) life. This unusual reversal of our expectations shakes up our perceptions about who sustains whom.
Clearly, from these examples, we can see that it isn't things — not computer systems, not factories, not material objects, not Chaplin's brick wall — that sustain. And not even persons, as caring and committed to helping one another as they are, truly sustain in the deepest sense those they care for.
