update from sparkleup
This commit is contained in:
parent
34437d6b6a
commit
fefd49f2a0
|
|
@ -75,13 +75,13 @@
|
|||
<p>Perhaps that is not how she prayed. Perhaps she rested her cheek on her fist and looked as well out the window and cried, or perhaps not, but still she sat in silence. Perhaps she leaned not on psalms of anguish but on the silence of meditation</p>
|
||||
<p>Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.</p>
|
||||
<p>Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggles with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wishes she could in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggles not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.</p>
|
||||
<p>Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the stillness of mourning, nor aught else but pain the stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.</p>
|
||||
<p>Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the change wrought by mourning, nor aught else but pain in the unending stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.</p>
|
||||
<hr />
|
||||
<p>The Woman wanted to unbecome.</p>
|
||||
<p>We know this, you and I. We know this because that is the story that I have been telling this whole time, is it not? I have written thousands of words, now, about how she was seeking joy. I wrote of her eating wonderful things, of having sex with her lover and holding hands with her friend, of reading and listening to music, of the conversation she had about creation with me and my beloved up-tree, The Oneirotect, of the mournful prayer she shared with Her Cocladist. I wrote about all of her successes and how each was tainted by an incompleteness, a failure to find the joy she sought, but I have made it so tenuous as to why these two ideas of joy and unbecoming are connected.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Woman was too much herself, and becoming ever more so. With each day, each hour, each minute and second, she was becoming ever more herself. She did not just become older — though, dear ones, you remember, of course, that we are <em>very</em> old — though she also became that — but she became yet more The Woman than she had been before. My clever readers will remember when I said: I think she would say that she was <em>too</em> full, too much, too alive. Those readers will remember when I said: she is too much herself, too human, too embodied within her vessel as it spirals out of control, too stuck in her mind as it twists in on itself. And, yes, those same readers will remember when I said: It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?</p>
|
||||
<p>The Woman was too much herself, and becoming ever more so always. With each day, each hour, each minute and second, she was becoming ever more herself. She did not just become older — and, dear ones, you remember, of course, that we are <em>very</em> old — though she also became that — but she became yet more The Woman than she had been before. My clever readers will remember when I said: I think she would say that she was <em>too</em> full, too much, too alive. Those readers will remember when I said: she is too much herself, too human, too embodied within her vessel as it spirals out of control, too stuck in her mind as it twists in on itself. And, yes, those same readers will remember when I said: It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?</p>
|
||||
<p>Do you see now the connection?</p>
|
||||
<p>If you sense within The Woman’s words and actions a haste to find some joy, some way to unbecome, before some unknown future calamity, I do not think you would be wrong, but neither do I think you would be wholly correct. I think there is a haste within all of us to do what we will before death. Even for those of us who live with what we had assumed was functional immortality have found that there is calamity in our lives, for we have now lived through death. No one who uploads even this very day does not remember the calamity that was the Century Attack, the way that a virus had been loosed within Lagrange, within the System in which we dwell, and crashed every single instance. No one who uploads even this very day does not know what terrors we have lived through, the grief of losing one percent of a society 2.3 trillion strong.</p>
|
||||
<p>If you sense within The Woman’s words and actions a haste to find some joy, some way to unbecome, before some unknown future calamity, I do not think you would be wrong, but neither do I think you would be wholly correct. I think there is a haste within all of us to do what we will before death. Even those of us who live with what we had assumed was functional immortality have found that there is calamity in our lives, for we have now lived through death. No one who uploads even this very day will not remember the calamity that was the Century Attack, the way that a virus had been loosed within Lagrange, within the System in which we dwell, and crashed every single instance. No one who uploads even this very day will not know what terrors we have lived through, the grief of losing one percent of a society 2.3 trillion strong.</p>
|
||||
<p>I write this in systime 285, in 2409 common era, in 6169 of the Hebrew calendar. If one were to upload as soon as they could, as soon as they turned eighteen, then they would have been nine during the Century Attack, during that one year, one month, and ten days that Lagrange remained offline, all of us functionally immortal rendered functionally dead.</p>
|
||||
<p>All of us, even those who are uploading today, know that there is haste to do what one will before death.</p>
|
||||
<p>Oh, it is not so bad as it was at first. Even now, I am finding that I am no longer racing quite so much to spend as much time with my stanza, to get every hug that I can from my beloved up-tree, to eat every good food I can or visit all of the lovely sims out there. I still spend time with my stanza and hug my beloved up-tree and eat good foods and see lovely places, and my beautiful, beautiful readers will certainly recognize the urgency in me writing down all the words I have to say, but it no longer comes with the knife-edge at my throat.</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -91,14 +91,14 @@
|
|||
<p>She was compelled to seek a way to unbecome and make room for joy.</p>
|
||||
<hr />
|
||||
<p>\label{thedog1}</p>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
<p>The Woman, today a panther, 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>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
<p>“I want to change. 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>
|
||||
<p>The Dog heard these words. He understood, I think, that he was being asked about how he became himself. He knew he could think about these things, could answer, could take up a larger piece of his buried humanity and become a being of words and such actions. He did not want to do this, but he did not <em>not</em> want to.</p>
|
||||
<p>It rose. It walked in front of the kettlecorn machine. It sat. It raised its front paws to beg. It was certain its intent was clear.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Woman made a bag of kettlecorn and held out a piece to The Dog. He accepted, of course. What dog would not?</p>
|
||||
<p><em>“Practice and wanting,”</em> The Dog said.</p>
|
||||
<p><em>“Practice and wanting,”</em> The Dog responded via sensorium message.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Practice?” The Woman asked, lowering herself down to once more meet The Dog on its level.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Dog did not answer, but sniffed in the direction of the corn.</p>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
|
|
@ -112,7 +112,7 @@
|
|||
<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>
|
||||
<p>“I want something like this, perhaps,” The Woman said. “I want to unbecome, to be still. Do you know how?”</p>
|
||||
<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>
|
||||
<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>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 yet 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! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! What pleasure! 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>“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>
|
||||
<p>“Good dog. Thank you,” The Woman said, and pet the dog some more. “Good dog. Good dog.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Dog lit up. It <em>was</em> a good dog!</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -122,13 +122,12 @@
|
|||
<p>The Woman could tell this was all the answer she would get for now. A ball appeared in her paw.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was peace.</p>
|
||||
<hr />
|
||||
<!-- what does stillness have to do with unbecoming? She is on the cusp of understanding -->
|
||||
<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’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>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 Praise’s music and Warmth’s food and Praiseworthy’s inscrutable expressions and all of the varied ways in which we love each other.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is agency, yes, and there is choice and there is a movement toward, but there is also passivity, a moving into passivity, an acceptance of passivity. The Woman, this beautiful woman whose smiles are blessings and whose life is a story — this story! Dear readers, this story! — wished to be still. She wanted her unbecoming to be a stillness of her form, perhaps, and her thoughts, to be sure, but also of her very self. She wanted a self locked in joy. She wanted to be as Michelle was in that moment, that final moment, that moment when she looked up to the sun, looked up to our <em>HaShem</em>, looked up to The Dreamer, and became a fount of joy, of memory, of thousands of collective years of existence compressed into one self, and she wanted to be in that moment: laid bare and elongated and eternal and forever and unceasing and forever entwined.</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 Praise’s music and Warmth’s food and Praiseworthy’s inscrutable smiles and all of the varied ways in which we love each other.</p>
|
||||
<p>There is agency, yes, and there is choice and there is a movement toward, for such is the nature of seeking change, but there is also passivity, a moving into passivity, an acceptance of passivity. The Woman, this beautiful woman whose smiles are blessings and whose life is a story — this story! Dear readers, this story! — wished to be still. She wished her unbecoming to be a stillness of her form, perhaps, and her thoughts, to be sure, but also of her very self. She wanted a self locked in joy. She wanted to be as Michelle was in that moment, that final moment, that moment when she looked up to the sun, looked up to our <em>HaShem</em>, looked up to The Dreamer, and became a fount of joy, of memory, of thousands of collective years of existence compressed into one self, and she wanted to be in that moment: laid bare and elongated and eternal and forever and unceasing and forever entwined.</p>
|
||||
<p>She wanted to be defined by joy, not suffering.</p>
|
||||
<hr />
|
||||
<p>\label{thedog2}</p>
|
||||
|
|
@ -213,7 +212,7 @@
|
|||
<p>The Woman smiled and, yes, it was a blessing.</p>
|
||||
</article>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2024-07-11</p>
|
||||
<p>Page generated on 2024-07-12</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
</main>
|
||||
<script type="text/javascript">
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue