Updating 7

content/draft/007.md

@@ -122,7 +122,8 @@ Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.
 
 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.
 
-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 the stillness of mourning, nor 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.
+
+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.
 
 -----
 
@@ -154,7 +155,7 @@ She was compelled to seek a way to unbecome and make room for joy.
 
 \label{thedog1}
 
-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.
+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.
 
 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.
 
@@ -174,7 +175,7 @@ The Woman made a bag of kettlecorn and held out a piece to The Dog. He accepted,
 
 The Dog did not answer, but sniffed in the direction of the corn.
 
-The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. *"I remember,"* The Dog said. *"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."*
+The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. *"I remember,"* The Dog said. *"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."*
 
 The Dog waited for another bribe before continuing, for this was, evidently, the deal. *"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."*
 
@@ -196,13 +197,13 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 
 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. *"Don't want! Who will watch Motes?"*
 
-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.
+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.
 
 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. *"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."*
 
-"Good dog. Thank you," The Woman said. "Good dog."
+"Good dog. Thank you," The Woman said, and pet the dog some more. "Good dog. Good dog."
 
-The Dog lit up. It was a good dog!
+The Dog lit up. It *was* a good dog!
 
 The Woman saw this and had a thought. "Are you happy?" she asked, handing over one more kernel. "Are you at peace?"
 
@@ -217,6 +218,15 @@ The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was p
 -----
 
 <!-- what does stillness have to do with unbecoming? She is on the cusp of understanding -->
+The Woman wanted to unbecome.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 *must* 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.
+
+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 
 
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@@ -236,7 +246,7 @@ It explored a forest, sometimes running, sometimes sniffing thoughtfully, withou
 
 It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine, or perhaps it did not.
 
-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.
+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.
 
 It experienced each moment as it came and moved on, not stopping to analyze or categorize or name.
 
@@ -248,7 +258,7 @@ It had been Scout, then, when it first came to be. When Its Elder had forked too
 
 At first, it had had some occasional care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, *so* 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.
 
-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.
+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.
 
 So, it rejected them.
 
@@ -256,7 +266,7 @@ Oh, the whole of its clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them,
 
 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?
 
-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 *not* know it, and it was happy thereby.
+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 *not* know it, and it was happy thereby.
 
 And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept and ate and chased rabbits.
 
@@ -348,3 +358,23 @@ Her Friend smiled, raising her paper cup in a toast and tapping it gently to The
 "Of course, No Hesitation," The Woman said, sitting up straighter, as though by having her body more in order, her thoughts might be as well — would that this worked, my dear friends! Would that I could be so still and keep my thoughts like ducks: all in a row. Would that my emotions all faced the same direction. Ah, but The Woman continued, "If becoming was the act of going from stillness to movement, then unbecoming might well be the act of going from movement to stillness."
 
 These words apparently caught Her Friend off guard, as ey, too, sat up straighter, furrowing eir brow. I am sure that you can see just how startling such an answer may be! We knew from the start, of course, that talk of unbecoming would be littered with little landmines labeled with such things as 'suicide' or 'self harm' or simply 'the void', of course, but The Woman's words spoke of something more complicated.
+
+"What, then does that stillness look like, to you?" Her Friend asked carefully.
+
+"There are some specifics I have yet to work out, but I can say now that it takes three forms." The Woman held up a paw with three of her fingers raised, and she ticked off each item as she went. "The first form is a spiritual stillness. The second form is a mental stillness. The third form is a physical stillness."
+
+"This sounds a little like meditation."
+
+"There are meditative aspects about it, I would say, but I would not say that it *is* meditation, for it lacks the intent."
+
+"How does it differ, then?"
+
+"Each is an inversion of turmoil. Where there is spiritual unrest, there will be only rest. I do not pray, could not pray, and so this will be an act of becoming okay with that. I can feel RJ in the world, but in that I do not sense any sort of spiritual connection, and so I will become okay with that.
+
+"Where my mind is unsettled, it will be settled. Rather than worrying about my day or about some routine not coming to fruition, I will settle into calm. Instead of thinking myself in circles, I will become a singular point: still and without direction."
+
+"And physically?" Her Friend asked, brow still furrowed. "Will you no longer shift forms?"
+
+The Woman smiled, giving a slight bow. "Yes, No Hesitation. All three of these must work together, yes? If there is turmoil in my thoughts, there will be turmoil in my spirit and I will shift form. If there is turmoil in my spirit, I will think and think and think and shift form. If I become but one form, my mind and my spirit will automatically become that much calmer."
+
+Her Friend sighed, and in that sigh was a recognition of unknowing, of ignorance. Ey knew, I think — I think because ey has told me — that ey did not truly understand what it was that The Woman was aiming at. And yet, to ask–! How to ask questions such as what ey wished? There are words and words, and words and words and words that all feel so loaded, yes? They are overburdened with meaning and meaning and meaning. They are too hot, my beloved friends, they are much too hot, and so we must pick them up with tongs and wear thick gloves and perhaps dark glasses over our eyes