Trice > Recent Status Updates

Beautiful
And makes me think Mni Waconi - water is life
Here water is memory
And water shapes or takes life

Wow
Back to Nineveh reflecting on Gilgamesh
Water remembers
The king’s old mentor: “Gilgamesh…wished to conquer death + so he traveled to the ends of the world - but he failed. He did not see that the only way to become immortal is to be remembered after you have gone, + the only way to be remembered is to leave behind a good story. My king, why is it that you chose to make your story such a heartless one?”

Good story mostly
Feels like it started with imagination but lost it by the end

Kind of laughing thinking this wld have been a much better book for Dr. Aaronson to use in classes as there’s lots of interesting stuff, tho very basic. Nice focus on bacteriology
He seems to go overboard with assigning blame for all plagues of the past to this same vampiric bacteria though when their symptoms are so different. Loving the biology mystery in the midst of a theme usually focused on blood + violence

Beginning in routine
After the shock of the downfall and related losses. After he’s established a system
Similar to Dog Stars in that way
Humanity dehumanized and threatening

“You’re crazy”
“I’m not sure you hv a hope in hell of building anything”
“You’re nuts”
“We don’t have a prayer of succeeding here”
But
“yeah, I’ll stay. I want to build something. I never had a chance to build anything before”
“you’re just crazy enough to make it work”

Not quite happily ever after yet

Hope, work, comradeship
Remembrance of loss + a grove of oak + then beginning

The Self must create
Its own reasons for being.
To shape God,
Shape Self.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Travis asks why personify Change as god-why is a gd questn. She grew up in a time of chg + forms her thoughts partly arnd/in response to what she feels her father + others are refusing to see, that change is intensifying. Does she fear stability? Or simply stagnatn? Or is it that we’re always changing even when life is stable? She receives it as true but it comes fr observing the world +reaches into space for hope

There it was - the end of all things

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn”
(143)
————
“Kindness eases Change” (157)

Earthseed: The Books of the Living

Tragedy + hardship pile atop ea other
When I read this before too it felt a mix of incredibly prescient for what is happening in the US now but also frightening for what it imagined that hasn’t come yet but doesn’t seem too terribly unrealistic. Water so expensive and so scarce and protections for ppl being whittled down to nothing till de facto slavery beyond prison sys isn’t so far fetched…..

When no influence is strong enough
To unify people
They divide.
They struggle,
One against one,
Group against group,
For survival, position, power…
until one of them becomes
A leader
Most will follow,
Or a tyrant
Most fear.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living

All struggles
Are essentially
Power struggles.
Who will rule,
Who will lead,
Why will define,
refine,
confine,
design,
Who will dominate.
All struggles
Are essentially power struggles,
And most are no more intellectual
than two rams
knocking their heads together.
Earthseed: The Books of the Living

The trouble with Keith
Well 13 is the age of manhood in some cultures
He’s another who thinks manhood is all about privilege and respect but no expectations. Grew up with one of those - not as bad as Keith but definitely as much bullying and sneaking as could get away with

This does feel really different reading print rather than audio but things are very familiar. Did not remember how much the beginning was tied to her reflections on her god + her sense of purpose in delineating god + meaning
Feels like there are several strands that affect each other but are separate: the neighborhood+father’s church, society violently falling apart, her special ability -hyperempathy, her religion

“My favorite poem, the one by Li Shang-Yin
When Will I Be Home?
When will I be home? I don’t know.
In the mountains, in the rainy night,
The Autumn lake is flooded.
Someday we will be back together again.
We will sit in the candlelight by the West window.
And I will tell you how I remembered you
Tonight on the stormy mountain.

Limits and ppl left behind
Why did he let him think he’d be one when he already had another solution?

I…am not sure I understand
Maybe holding all that tension + having no outlet of relaxed companionship? He has Bangley, but B’s all abt death + defense + not really abt society + community
Crying…no,sobbing…in front of 2 strangers on their land aftr physically insisting on a face-to-face in a situation that is w/o any expectation of trust or safety. Makes me cringe even more tho may b silly social rxn

Aiya
Seriously?

Well hmmm that took a turn

Ahhh the breath of relief in good writing and being inside a (fictional but) real person’s head

Bugging me that like a lot of supposedly broadening media, it still centers Euro-descent culture as if eg. indigenous cultures nvr existed or hv same prevalence/importance + didn’t have different mores. Even euro indigenous cultures had broadr understandings of ppl that might have even stretched to sth like 2 spirit or specific characteristics like among the Maori. This is very middle class white USA perspective

Lololol
“Release the Kraken!” takes on a whole new meaning. Poor Kelli who’s mentally holding her head repeating “the horror! The horror!”

Yeah, the S identity thing is complicated growing up. Ppl are stupid. And mean

I think /I’m/ hoping to cry
Imagine a friend who isn’t surprised or put off by just utter release of all that internal pressure and disruption and just says “yeah, I know. You can let it out. It’s okay.” And on we go? Really? Does that exist?

Reading right along but also this feels maybe a cm deeper than fanfic 🤷‍♀️

Maybe my imagination or experience is stilted but I cannot imagine a child of 8 managing that kind of social complexity or caring to bother, ADHD or not, in order to build up and engage multiple difficult and potentially contradictory needs of other children of the same age

The other weird thing for me possibly is that at this age I was hanging out with the boys on the playground bc the girls were boring and afraid to get dirty etc so they didn’t do anything. And i think I would have really disliked Am, though she seems to be being a good friend to Kelli, which is a nice change for the type

Fun switch between Kelli’s perspective and her writing/character’s. The back and forth to childhood sounds like she had a robot programmed with ABA therapy which is 😣 and honestly weird for a future far enough away that they’re living middle class suburban lives near Jupiter

Almost feels like it’s trying too hard to shout its MC’s identity - yes, we get it, she’s autistic. If that’s so acknowledged in this future society, it wouldn’t 1. be considered a disability but simply another way of being 2. need to be detailed in friend relationships beyond “that’s how she is”