update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/idumea/007.html

@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@
 <p>The Woman gently soothed The Dog, letting the interaction fade away behind a stream of pets and scratches in just the right spot (for The Dog knew how to direct people to it) and more treats. We are creatures of pleasure all, you see. The Woman and I, yes—for do we not both like being brushed?—but also the rest of our clade and so many others besides. What pleasure there is in rending the mind from the body and letting it live as it will! What pleasure! What pleasure there is in choosing a form one inhabits entirely! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! The Dog was pleased that The Woman had not been told by Its Skunks not to feed it too much kettlecorn, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.</p>
 <p>Once The Dog had come down from being ambushed by the thought of abandoning those principles he had carried into his state, he realized what The Woman had wanted. <em>&ldquo;Can show you pack-friends who go chase rabbits all the time. But no words because they don&rsquo;t want. And can&rsquo;t say how. Don&rsquo;t want to know.&rdquo;</em></p>
 <p>&ldquo;Good dog. Thank you,&rdquo; The Woman said, and pet the dog some more. &ldquo;Good dog. Good dog.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>The Dog lit up. It was a good dog!</p>
+<p>The Dog lit up. It <em>was</em> a good dog!</p>
 <p>The Woman saw this and had a thought. &ldquo;Are you happy?&rdquo; she asked, handing over one more kernel. &ldquo;Are you at peace?&rdquo;</p>
 <p>The Dog had made himself into a dog, more or less, and so was not one to consider the path of his life with much reflection or weight. He was rarely a creature of the past or the future.</p>
 <p><em>&ldquo;Happy? Yes! Have treat!&rdquo;</em> The Dog leapt up and started doing little hops, having realized it had an opportunity. <em>&ldquo;Throw ball? Then, very happy!&rdquo;</em></p>
@@ -126,7 +126,8 @@
 <p>The Woman wanted to unbecome.</p>
 <p>I am doing my best to tell you, dear readers, this story from front to back like any good fairy tale. I am, of course, failing at times to do so like any good author must. Our lives are full of doublings-back and loop-the-loops even when we are bound by time&rsquo;s oh-so-strict arrow, yes? For our lives are circuitous and the progression of the world, as we know, spirals and coils around us.</p>
 <p>And so it is that I must once more step back from my notes — and here you must imagine me the type to have notes — and trace my finger up along the timeline of what I have so far told you so that we may sit together and consider why it is that stillness, for The Woman, has so much to do with unbecoming.</p>
-<p>We must first of all unlearn the idea that unbecoming is an active process. There may be agency involved — in fact, I think The Woman would insist that there <em>must</em> be agency involved, though I think she might hesitate if you were to ask whose agency — but that does not mean that this is a process of undoing-of-self. It is not, as The Woman stated so explicitly, dying, of course, but neither is it coming apart. </p>
+<p>We must first of all unlearn the idea that unbecoming is an active process. There may be agency involved — in fact, I think The Woman would insist that there <em>must</em> be agency involved, though I think she might hesitate if you were to ask whose agency — but that does not mean that this is a process of undoing-of-self. It is not, as The Woman stated so explicitly, dying, of course, but neither is it coming apart.</p>
+<p>The agency, then, comes mostly in the act of choice. I mentioned above or perhaps some pages back that The Woman held onto the thought that stillness lay in choice. I said this because we are so beholden to what we were and what we have become and what we fear we may yet be that we so often lack choice. Perhaps this is an issue faced by all of humanity, but for me and for The Woman and for my beloved up-tree and for all of our clade, it is of the utmost importance, for we are so often and in so many subtle ways unable to make choices ourselves. Oh, I can choose what to wear, perhaps, or what pen to pick up, or when to schedule one of those lovely picnic lunches that the ninth stanza so enjoys, with music and food and </p>
 <hr />
 <p>\label{thedog2}</p>
 <p>The Dog took then The Woman to a forest, and showed her where The Rabbit-Chaser lived. The Dog went to greet The Rabbit-Chaser. He sniffed it, as is custom among their species, and it sniffed back.</p>