God Complex

“There but for the grace of Doro go I.”

When you have outlived billions of people, predate Christ, are able to pass your spirit from one body to another, and have single-handedly nurtured and produced the next step in evolution by way of a new race of people who can all trace their origins directly back to you, what is to keep you from feeling like a god. What is to keep you from feeling like God (note the capital G)?

It is understandable how someone with Doro’s credentials could become a god in his own mind, but he has gone so far as to make others believe his godliness. Is it his age? Is it his power? Is it his immortality? A combination of all three?

I think the immortality factor is what carries the most weight. We accept death as a natural part of life. Death is Nature’s own checks and balances system. A person is given a lifetime to make the most of it, and then death comes when that gift has expired. And sometimes death comes early, as a subtle (or not so subtle) reminder that our time here is temporary, and no one is guaranteed to live until old age comes to call. Death is the universal equalizer, from which no one is supposed to be immune.

So for Doro to both not be able to die, and to be able to take life so easily, instantly sets him apart. He is not subject to the universal equalizer; he is not equal. Doro giveth and Doro taketh away. He has created these people, and makes no secret that he can also destroy them, which puts Doro in the place of Nature. Doro becomes their checks and balances system, and Doro becomes God.

 

Loss of Humanity

There is a lot of mention in both Wild Seed and Clay’s Ark, of losing one’s humanity. Through the process of the Patternists and the Clayarks evolutions while some attributes are clearly gained others are lost, and outside of the obvious identifiable changes, there is a certain un-nameable something that is also lost and seems to hold the key to whatever makes humanity in the eyes of the characters. One of the main signifiers of losing one’s humanity in both books seems to be a lack of regard for human life. But, if you have evolved into something that is no longer human, can you truly have regard for something you are not? Wouldn’t having humanity be contradictory to your new nature? Think of the way the general population treats animals. We wipe out whole animal habitats to make room for our own communities. We take animal lives by the millions maybe even billions to fill our bellies. Do we stop to think about how cruel it is to uproot an animal family? When we sit down at the dinner table, does eating an animal that might have been someone’s mother give us a pause? For most people, most humans, these are non-issues, because we consider animals lesser beings — less than human. So wouldn’t it follow as natural that when we evolve beyond human, to be human, will then be less than. And shouldn’t we expect that our humanity will be given no more thought than we currently give animal nature? Won’t it be natural for us to lose our humanity?

 

Love Potion #9?

“I wonder… What’s the chemical composition of live? Human babies are ugly even when they’re normal, but we love them. If we didn’t, the species would die…” Clay’s Ark

When I read this quote, I remember thinking, “human babies aren’t all ugly. My daughters were beautiful from the moment they came out.” But then I remember my husband’s descriptions of the girls upon their debut into the world, and I wonder if the beauty I saw was really me seeing it, or was it the oxytocin speaking… like oxytocin goggles instead of beer goggles. Now, don’t misunderstand, my husband loves his girls and was amazed and humbled by bearing witness to their births, but, he said the girls looked like “little aliens.” Which logically, I can understand. Their little heads are all mashed up from their journey down the birth canal. They’re covered in blood and discharge and countless other body fluids and excretions. Their eyes are usually tightly shut or so open it seems unnatural. Their little arms strike at the air as if wondering where all the water has gone. And that first cry is like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Yes, logically I can see the alien. But my mother memory remembers how both girls were born with their eyes wide open, like they were looking for me. I remember how small they were and how I instantly wanted to protect them. I remember loving them, fiercely. But when I compare my memories to my husband’s description I realize my memory is an emotional one, a recollection of feelings, not facts. But something in me still fights against the idea that I am hard-wired to love my children. My love being chemical makes it something that I have to do, and I want that love to be a choice. I want my girls to know that the way I feel about them has nothing to do with me riding some hormonal high, and in reality, even if we accept that oxytocin, or some other human hormonal cocktail is what kick-starts the love, at some point that hormone induced honeymoon is over and the way you feel about your children either becomes based on a memory of how you think you’re supposed to feel, or it’s based in the here and now of who you and your children are and the relationship that has developed. Even if the love is given to us by way of biology, it becomes our choice to nurture it and allow it to grow beyond something chemical.

 

Sticks and Stones

Coransee is good for catching people on a technicality. He’s a true politician in the Patternist world. He makes sure he gets his point across to his audience, but he’s always careful that his exact wording is not incriminating. This got me to thinking about the power of words, or rather, the power we give words. We attach meanings to words that go beyond their simple dictionary definitions and at their mere mention these words can drag us from giggles to tears. Then there are the omitted words. The words we choose not to say at critical moments. Sometimes the things we leave out are just as important as the ones we leave in.

Words conjure up images and contexts and all of the emotions that come along with them. Take the infamous “N’ word. It’s a 6 letter word. 2 syllables. 2 vowels. 4 consonants. A relatively short word. Not even long enough to substantiate a password on some sites. But oh, does it pack a punch. Throw that word out in the middle of the most peaceful of discussions and all of a sudden you have World War III on your hands. Because it’s not just a word. It’s the destruction of families. It’s human beings on an auction block. It’s the lynching of innocents. It’s the rape of mothers and grandmothers past. It’s a history that documents the pain of a people. You can’t just throw it in a conversation expecting people to hear “a noun most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to Black people.” (thanks for that Wikipedia).

We tell children “Stick and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” But it’s a lie. Words matter. If someone knocks you down and calls you names, long after your bruises heal and your cuts scab over, the words they said will stay with you.

But on the flip side… we can use words to inspire. We can use words to bring joy and hope. Words can bring freedom and enlightenment. And of course there’s that four letter word that’s more powerful than any other. Love.

We must take care with our words. Be conscious of their meaning, and be cognizant with how we use them. When we choose our words we are choosing to change the world in some part, whether it’s one person’s world, or the world of a nation… choose wisely.

 

Age of Maturity

In the world of the Pattermaster there is a clear distinction between a child and an adult. A transition takes place and the childhood shield comes undone. In our society, is there as clear a distinction? You can drive a car when you turn 16. You can see an R-rated movie when you’re 17. You can smoke cigarettes, buy lottery tickets and sign yourself up to be a soldier when you’re 18. You can drink alcohol when you’re 21. You can rent a car (with most rental agencies) when you’re 25. So perhaps our journey into maturity is a tiered process. More responsibility is placed on on you as you get older. This would make sense, except for two major issues. 1. Is there something inherently flawed about making the general assumption that chronological age connotes maturity? and 2. Isn’t being in the army a heavier decision than making the choice to consume alcohol or renting a car? If our determination of maturity is indeed on a tiered scale, these issues would lead one to believe it is a faulty tier, rife with inconsistencies.

And what of those people who are forced into maturity like Amber? Where do they fall in the tier? Does our culture acknowledge the maturity prodigies, or do we force them back into their chronological box? Do we skip them ahead in life, the way we skip the academically gifted along in school? Are they awarded with scholarships for their hardships at the hands of life’s toughest lessons? Or do we remain rigid in inside of our tiered constructs demanding they behave like the children their age indicates they are?

What would society be like if age were experiential instead of chronological? What if you amassed life points for different experiences? Could such a society exist? Could it thrive??

 

 

Compassion Is As Compassion Does

He gave a choked cry, screened himself from the pain, and hurried to the door. Teray opened his mind a little more, still screening out the woman’s pain.

Why screen out someone’s pain? To be able to feel the emotions and sensations of another human being is to inherit a gift from which a natural compassion would flow… this was my initial stream of consciousness after reading this passage. But after closer examination, several more questions sprang to life.

• If you don’t screen out someone’s pain, and thus feel compelled to help them, are you helping them to assuage your own pain, or are you helping them because you feel compassion for their predicament? Are your intentions selfish in nature or empathetic? And at the end of the day, does it matter why you are helping, so long as you are helping? I am inclined to say that so long as help is being given who cares what the reason is! Better to be helped for selfish reasons than not to be helped at all.
• Is it necessary to block out someone’s pain in order to help them? Can you be so overwhelmed with the emotion of another person that it incapacitates you? The initial sensation of pain would serve as a call to action, after which you would censor the offending sensations, in order to be able to assist the person in need. In this instance, screening yourself from someone’s pain, could be in and of itself an act of compassion.
• But here’s the question that really got me… is the patternists’ screening of pain, any different than what we already do in our primitive (sans telepathy) society? Our technologically driven society acts as our sixth sense. At any given moment we can access information about suffering in the most remote regions of the globe… but do we? We spend hours on facebook, twitter, and sites devoted to celebrity stalking… but how many hours do we spend following up on the next steps of the revolution in Cairo, or infant mortality in India, or the rape crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or even the maternal health crisis right here in the United States. And even if we do incorporate some NY Times or BBC News in with your daily fluff-news/ social-media fix… do we do anything about it? Or do we read the article, think how horrible it is, and then move on… screening out the unpleasant-ness, and going on with the business of our day?

We live in a world where desensitization is our form of screening. Even if we feel some peripheral sympathy when we read the latest gruesome headline… it is rare that we shed a tear, or feel rage, or jump up out of our seat  because we are so moved to make a change.

So, if the awareness of pain and suffering of another does not inspire compassion and action, what will?

 

 

The Next Step on the Evolutionary Ladder

First and foremost, I must say Happy Birthday to Ms. Butler, and welcome you to my first blog post in her honor. In light of all of the recent post-apocalyptic books, series, films and books turned films, I have often wondered, just what will happen when the world comes crashing down. I say when and not if, because given all that mankind has done to Mother Earth with little regard for the consequences both short and long term, a new world order seems to be an inevitability rather than some abstract hypothetical. And when this shift happens, I wonder, how will we, as a species, evolve?

Patternmaster is one such permutation of that evolution. Patternists vary in strength from those who lord over others with their superior mental strength, to those that have escaped evolution and are thereby unable to exert any mental strength otherwise known as telepathy. In Patternmaster, telepathy is the sixth sense, making those who can not access it, disabled… mute. They are looked on as weak and inferior, highly vulnerable and fragile. Patternists must exercise extreme restraint in the presence of mutes, or they could kill them with minimal effort.

So, what of this society where the use/ display of physical strength is considered barbaric, and battles are primarily fought in the mind? Given that our current society is the only place I can draw a comparison from, a mental society sounds so much more peaceful to me… a thoughtful place where people use their words. But the human desire for power does not seem to have escaped our telepathic successors, and though my journey into Patternmaster is still in its infancy, I am beginning to wonder how much will really have progressed, even after we’ve evolved.