update from sparkleup
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<!-- The Dog and The Rabbit-Chaser gives her the idea when she goes to visit Motes to ask about change -->
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<p>\label{thedog}</p>
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<p>The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes — did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human! — and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice — that was the thought she held onto — that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.</p>
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<p>The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes — did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human! — and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice — that was the thought she held onto — that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.</p>
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<p>The Dog had attached himself to Au Lieu Du Rêve, to the theatre troupe and to the fifth stanza, to His Skunks, some time ago. He spent many lazy days among them, many evenings dozing by the kettlecorn stand in the theater lobby in the hopes of someone dropping their snacks, many frantic minutes carrying The Child’s latest core dump to the resident systech after she yet again in a bout of play had crashed.</p>
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<p>The Dog was the fork of a systech, itself. No longer a systech, primarily a dog, but with such a drive within it. It, like its fellow dogs, lived a simplicity that Its Elder found himself wishing for now and again, but it still felt that sense of duty to people and the world. How very canine of it! How very companionable! Friendship is stored in the dog, yes? It did not know if it would ever grow weary of its role and return to Its Elder, or perhaps cast away what remained of its desire to do anything but exist as itself.</p>
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<p>“I want to unbecome,” The Woman said to The Dog, crouching down where it lay, curled in sun, curled on a cushion so thoughtfully provided. “I want to become still. I came to speak with Motes, but you have done a similar thing, and I want to understand.”</p>
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@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
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<p><em>“Practice and wanting,”</em> The Dog said.</p>
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<p>“Practice?” The Woman asked, lowering herself down to once more meet The Dog on its level.</p>
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<p>The Dog did not answer, but sniffed in the direction of the corn.</p>
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<p>The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. <em>“I remember,”</em> The Dog said. <em>“The tall one wanted to eat and chase and fetch and be. He wanted to not worry, to not tire himself out chasing making the world better. But he couldn’t just become me, become us — The Job is important.”</em></p>
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<p>The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. <em>“I remember,”</em> The Dog said. <em>“The tall one wanted to eat and chase and fetch and be. He wanted to not worry, to not tire himself out chasing making the world better. But he couldn’t just become me, become us — The Job is important.”</em></p>
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<p>The Dog waited for another bribe before continuing, for this was, evidently, the deal. <em>“He practiced becoming the pack, becoming like me. I remember many forks of his. Some that didn’t let go enough, some that let go too much. But he wanted to make me, make the pack. He kept wanting, kept trying, and now I am.”</em></p>
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<p>The Dog yawned. He had said a lot of words, and that was not always comfortable for him. It is not comfortable for me, yes? I am a being of words and words and words and words and it is uncomfortable, my friends, so uncomfortable. It reminded The Dog too much of human things, of things he no longer was in some integral way. He wanted a nap.</p>
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<p>“‘Let go too much’?” The Woman asked.</p>
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<p><em>“Some of the pack decide they don’t want the job, want to do what the tall one is afraid of. They want to never talk, never plan.”</em></p>
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<p>“I want something like this, perhaps,” The Woman said. “I want to unbecome, to be still. Do you know how?”</p>
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<p>The Dog froze in a swelling of alarm. His fears came from the same simplicity as his joys. While he was wont to let the possibility of casting off his humanity sneak up on him slowly, he still felt fear, like His Elder did, at such a blunt statement of the idea. <em>“Don’t want! Who will watch Motes?”</em></p>
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<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 of the stuff, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.</p>
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<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>
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<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>“Can show you pack-friends who go chase rabbits all the time. But no words because they don’t want. And can’t say how. Don’t want to know.”</em></p>
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<p>“Good dog. Thank you,” The Woman said. “Good dog.”</p>
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<p>The Dog lit up. It was a good dog!</p>
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<p>The Woman saw this and had a thought. “Are you happy?” she asked, handing over one more kernel. “Are you at peace?”</p>
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<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>
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<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>
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<p><em>“Happy? Yes! Have treat!”</em> The Dog leapt up and started doing little hops, having realized it had an opportunity. <em>“Throw ball? Then, very happy!”</em></p>
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<p>The Woman could tell this was all the answer she would get for now. A ball appeared in her paw.</p>
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<p>The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was peace.</p>
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<p>It was what it was right then and nothing else. The Woman could sense, from her long, meditative observations, that The Dog and The Rabbit-Chaser were not quite the same, that The Rabbit-Chaser had shed more of its cares.</p>
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<p>It explored a forest, sometimes running, sometimes sniffing thoughtfully, without a plan.</p>
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<p>It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine, or perhaps it did not.</p>
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<p>The joys and tragedies of its home drifted past its mind and into its too-perfect memory. Loves! Pleasures! Sorrows! Lives! Deaths! The laments of starving wolves outmaneuvered by deer! The blood of deer ripped to shreds by wolves! It did not determine what of what its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, paws took in was good, was evil, was just, was improper — it beheld what was, not what ought be, and there was a peace in that.</p>
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<p>It experienced each moment as it came and moved on, not stopping to analyze or categorize or name.</p>
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<p>It was a dog, as much as it could be.</p>
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<p>It had not always been a dog. It had a down-tree, the tall one who smelled of pack, who the word-users call Tomash. It had come from Its Elder when he had been experimenting with not only taking the shape of a dog but something of the mind as well.</p>
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<p>It had been Scout, then, when it first came to be. When Its Elder had forked too well, too firmly, and it had not minded the name then. It had gone to simply be in the world, and it was, and is.</p>
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<p>At first, it sometimes had had some care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, <em>so</em> many other things: new scents! Food! Scratching an itch! All of these very important things when you are a dog, and they are important now. Here. Vestigial, inherited cares were a problem for later.</p>
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<p>Then it had met the rest of its relatives, that growing pack of Scouts who rested within the System and experienced it, but who, unlike The Rabbit-Chaser, had a purpose: to keep watch and observe, and to report unusual things, and to, when they grew bored of being a dog, merge back. It liked these new relatives well enough — they smelled of family and were friendly — but it had not liked what they represented. They hesitated at becoming what they were, and it had understood that it might become more like them if words and thoughts and worries were to trouble it.</p>
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<p>At first, it had had some occasional care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, <em>so</em> many other things: new scents! Food! Scratching an itch! All of these very important things when you are a dog, and they are important now. Here. Vestigial, inherited cares were a problem for later.</p>
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<p>Then it had met the rest of its relatives, that growing pack of Scouts who rested within the System and experienced it, but who, unlike The Rabbit-Chaser, had a purpose: to keep watch and observe, and to report unusual things, and to, when they grew bored of being a dog, merge back. It liked these new relatives well enough — they smelled of family and were friendly — but it had not liked what they represented. They hesitated at becoming what they were, and it had understood that it might become more like them if words and thoughts and worries were to trouble it.</p>
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<p>So, it rejected them.</p>
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<p>Oh, the whole of the clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them, when it had cleared its name to as nothing as it could manage, a blank, a zero-width joiner, something unspeakable for the word-users, something unreadable, it had told them that it wished to hear not another word. It would not be communicating about anything that could not be said with the twitch of an ear or the wag of a tail, and it pushed away the slow stirrings of memories of personhood with a fork to ensure it.</p>
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<p>Oh, the whole of its clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them, when it had cleared its name to as nothing as it could manage, a blank, a zero-width joiner, something unspeakable for the word-users, something unreadable, it had told them that it wished to hear not another word. It would not be communicating about anything that could not be said with the twitch of an ear or the wag of a tail, and it pushed away the slow stirrings of memories of personhood with a fork to ensure it.</p>
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<p>The pack respected its wish. It saw them, sometimes, usually the young or the old who come to rest more thoroughly, and they played and ran and said nothing. What was there to say, after all, to this dog who surrendered thought with every step of every day?</p>
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<p>When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to their elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this — nor, by now, want to <em>not</em> know it, and it was happy thereby.</p>
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<p>And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept and ate and chased rabbits. </p>
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<p>When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to Their Elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this — nor, by now, want to <em>not</em> know it, and it was happy thereby.</p>
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<p>And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept and ate and chased rabbits.</p>
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<p>The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.</p>
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<p>The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not <em>still</em> enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her.</p>
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<p>So, her search continued.</p>
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