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“To reframe a life that feels wrecked or warped by early wiring is a monumental task. To do it in the face of ongoing societal oppressions, others’ needs and valid expectations of us, our own self-doubt and insecurities, and the navigation of the very real self-centeredness of many people, is so exhausting and exhaustive that I despair of most of humanity ever making the effort.” Nia I can’t emphasise what a monumental insight this is and how this deeply intricate understanding of the nature of tireless shadow work and its interconnectedness with the broader world is foundational to our growth towards our best potential. To strive with the force of life towards the betterment of the world without craving even an ounce of recognition is a path towards sainthood. It is paramount to self realisation and living a deeply fulfilling life and yet it is the hardest thing to do because to seek acceptance and recognition is so innately human. Thank you Nia for always lighting up the way to new ideas with your research and insights. I am so grateful to have access to your work. 💜
Swarna, I knew we were kindred spirits! When writing that paragraph, I kept thinking, "How do I write about shadow work without calling it shadow work?" That you saw what I was getting at brings such a life to my heart, knowing we have that kind of mutual understanding.
"It is paramount to self realisation and living a deeply fulfilling life and yet it is the hardest thing to do because to seek acceptance and recognition is so innately human." It is. It really is. And I don't think it's a bad thing, either. We all need to be seen and known and understood. It's when it turns into a demon that eats oneself and/or others that it becomes a problem. I am beyond grateful for the way you keep a light in this world, for all of us, and I hope for those who have lost their way. 💚🧚🕯️
I see you Nia. I understand that sometimes popular terminology has some preconceived notions attached to them and hence it is best conveyed rephrased. I do that too a lot and it is a herculean task in deconstructive style of essay writing like yours. I so admire it and learn from you.
It is all but human to seek appreciation and validation for our work, our sense of belonging and to be seen is so innate that capitalists have even found a way to manipulate that. I digress but yeah there’s nothing wrong in seeking recognition for one’s time and their work’s value. My only prayer for this world is for people to transcend their fear of isolation and see that we are all children of the universe collecting skills and resources to serve our mother earth better. 💜
You are one of the best humans I have known in my three decades of human existence Nia. I deeply appreciate your tireless strive to make this world a better place for us to live, walk and connect to. 💜
It's what I keep running into in all this research ... if we don't deal with the interpersonal, the larger societal issues and horrors will continue to overrun us. And vice versa, too.
If I can accurately transport myself back into my young child-mind and recall, or feel, how I experienced the world in those tender years, it seems that I saw personhood in many non-human entities. I would commune with them by way of a spirit of oneness, a spirit that walked with me everywhere I went.
Of course, the noise and the worries of the world would eventually corrupt that sacred connection and drive me deeper into a dualistic state of mind where I could better fit into the world as we know it. But I don't much care for the world as it is commonly constructed and experienced. Like virtually all others I have been trapped and imprisoned by it, to be sure, but I sense the wrongness of this world. I feel it deep within my bones. I sense the wrongness and the disharmony of this way of being, and in times of solitude I sometimes long for the courage to transcend it and allow myself to be swallowed up by the oneness of things. Maybe that's what happens when we die. We meld back into the One.
Your voice is soothing. I love listening to you read your essays.
Aw, thank you! Never thought my voice would be appreciated by anyone but my kids, but it's nice to hear!
Every time you write, I can sense how you sense the wrongness, the misalignment between what we're told is "real" or "just life" or "practical." You have a wonderful way to realigning those truths. Maybe that goes back to that childhood sensibility.
It's a thing to hang onto, for me, that so many people are able to still see and feel the this-world reality even in the face of so many structures and forces designed to make us forget. We're lucky to have access to places where we can still feel these connections in their overwhelming aliveness. To sit by a river all day and have no intrusion beyond a bird or two ... it's such a gift, in our world, to know that you can go places where you are reminded what it is to feel alive. 💚
Mmm you know I love this and all these fantastic recommendations! Thank you!! I love the murderbot series and this is also made me think of Becky chambers books and how she seamlessly introduces us to new species and even robots with their full humanity. You meet her characters and just know they matter - to each other and now to us, the readers.
Also that nurturing book about authoritarian parenting?? Adding it to my list immediately.
I have been taking small offerings when I visit the lake (a seed or bouquet of weeds or dried rose petals)…I love the idea of offering some coffee too 💙
The second book in the Wayfarers series, A Closed and Common Orbit, was brilliant on this point. I found it even more so than the Monk and Robot series because it showed the struggle of an AI trying to figure out who she was within the new form of a humanoid body, being taught to be human by a human who'd been raised by an AI ... convoluted idea maybe, but I thought she did it beautifully.
Riane Eisler's book is a little academic but I found it very readable and important in foundational ways. (She also wrote The Chalice & the Blade, which people are more familar with).
Love your gifts! Seeds and bouquets and dried petals ... 💚
Oh my, that concept—of being able to travel through the multiverse because your other selves have died. Wow. Will have to explore.
Another beautiful essay, Antonia. Loved the trains in your background to accompany this concept of traveling, great carriers of humanity, of gifts of thanks (to me, the whistle of a passing train is gift). And if only we humans on a larger scale could stop believing we have any say over who is human. Sheesh. The conceit.
Such a conceit, isn't it? It still baffles me that so many people believe it. Want to believe it. What would it take more people to shift back to what is probably a more evolutionarily aligned state?
I feel lucky to live in a train town. Of all the things humans have invented, there's something about trains that stands out as more aligned with our true selves and needs. No idea why but the rhythm and call of them is soothing to many.
I'm rubbing my hands with glee that I've found another sci-fi lover who seems to have a lot of overlap in taste with me! I haven't read Space Between Worlds, but will put it on my list. I've read and loved all the others you mentioned. Also in this vein, esp Martha Wells, you've probably read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series? Slow starter, but layers on thickly before long. How about An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon? That one has stuck with me. John Scalzi's Starter Villain fits the theme about who gets to be a person. Oh! And Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is pure fantasy but it is so much fun and so heartwarming, total page-turner - dragons deserve to be people, too. I bet you've read a lot of these already, I just get excited talking about fiction I love. :)
I actually struggled with Ancillary Justice but plan on getting back to it at some point. There was just something about it that kept losing my imagination -- you know, how they say we create virtual realities in our minds when we're reading? I kept losing that access. But will try again!
I have An Unkindness of Ghosts on my pile so will move it up soon! I got a whole bunch of recommendations last year that I have barely touched and am eager to. Do you read Sofia Samatar? Her collection of short stories "Tender" was one of my favorites last year. Short stories are really hard to do well but I loved every one of them, especially "The Red Thread."
Haven't heard of Temeraire but will put it on my pile, I definitely love fantasy, too! And I LOVE talking about fiction I love, which is part of why I agreed to do Threadable circles when they first launched. I can't seem to get into book clubs, no matter how much I like the people, but love love love talking about books. What's that about do you think?
I liked your gumbo piece. It’s a pity you didn’t have a chance to know Anna Davison’s better, and speak the language. I could wish that you had been with your father and his friends in Russia, the years before and after we married. The freedom you speak of was often severely compromised, and the gap between P’s understanding of how they might move and act — he had a famous actor father, and went where angels knew better than to take their asses - differed sharply from the experiences of the rest, who had learned what boundaries NOT to overstep. I was always really surprised to learn your father was in real fear of anything, but he was. You learn, what a police state is and can do, even to the best of people. Even Tsvetaeva found herself deserted, or cut off from any friends, in the country that had once revered her. Look into some of the memoirs.
All good points, Mama. And I wish more people understood what a police state can do even to the best people, without having to ahead and subject us all to one to experience it.
Sigh. Too true. I remember years - the ‘50’s and 60’s.. when people would say how they “couldn’t understand” how the Germans (or in Russia, the communists-) could ever have “chosen” to live under a dictatorship. WE could never do that, they said. So much for American exceptionalism! I’m hoping we pull through this - it’s like people thinking if they put their foot in a Bear trap, “just a little,” they can always pull it out if they don’t like it. The miracle was Mikhail Gorbachev, but greed had a hand in squelching that. The brave ones do get killed, too often, and others say the price is too high. Hard to argue with murderers.
"Power has always dehumanized, un-peopled. Power has always needed to sever our relations from the rest of the living world as the first step to exploitation."
So true. Makes me think about Martin Buber's distinction between I/Thou and I/It relationships. We humans treat most people outside our family/tribe as an IT (object). Then exploitation is so easy.
Yes! Once you dehumanize, it's just a series of steps to everything else. Start with water, then seeds, then women, ... who knows how many thousands of years ago, and pile mountains of justification on that bedrock over the centuries.
We have to do better than a society where we need "trash persons." So many people seem to have no sense of self-worth without comparison to others; how would they manage, if they were alone? Have they accomplished nothing that stands on its own, without competition?
Sometimes I see this need for validation come out in someone I didn’t think prone to it, and while I find it frustrating, it’s also a reminder of how often I fall into the same trap. That question, have they accomplished nothing that stands on its own, is such an important aspect of cultivating a sense of self-worth. We need people, I think, but just as much need to know who we are and accept ourselves without needing others to constantly reflect us back to ourselves.
“To reframe a life that feels wrecked or warped by early wiring is a monumental task. To do it in the face of ongoing societal oppressions, others’ needs and valid expectations of us, our own self-doubt and insecurities, and the navigation of the very real self-centeredness of many people, is so exhausting and exhaustive that I despair of most of humanity ever making the effort. But it is exactly what is needed to change the political, cultural, and social systems that make human life so consistently miserable and difficult.
Know thy self. To do so is to walk through fire. A submersion into darkness. It is not all that easy. The universe exacts a price to traverse that space.”
I really needed to read this today. This whole essay makes me feel seen, as cheesy as that sounds. The portion I quoted is exactly what I’m going through lately. The fact that you referenced works that I’ve read and loved - Broken Earth, A Memory Called Empire, Lord of the Rings - just goes to show how important their themes are for so many of us, including myself. It also goes to show that The Space Between Worlds is on my TBR for a reason! And that I should rectify that soon.
Thank you so much for this. I also love seeing your beautiful neighbors. This has inspired me to also appreciate nature and my neighbors within it this morning, with a hot cup of tea.
It does not sound cheesy at all. As someone who's gone through a lot of this in the past couple years, the relief of seeing myself in others' understanding of it, whether it's an essay or a YouTube video or a science fiction book, has been a lifesaver, no exaggeration.
And I'm glad to find others who love these books! Over and over in my life, science fiction and fantasy are where I find the best understanding of these deep human struggles. They find a way to make it all mean something.
The neighbors say hello. ;) I wish I'd taken a photo of the turkeys when they were babies. They're still cute, though. The whole family comes by every day to visit my brother-in-law's chickens next door, and then they hang out under the huge fir tree in the back yard. I've had worse neighbors!
I think this question of who gets to be a person and its opposite, who gets classified as a trash person, lies at the heart of our political division (not to mention the Middle East). So many layers to it. I've offered my college essay coaching pro bono to students at my old high school, but no one has taken me up on it in two years. Though I can understand why young people growing up in Troy might choose to define their personhood independently rather than placing themselves in a power structure defined by wealth. Part of me revels in that idea of people defying the rules, living outside the power structure however they can, even if another part of me knows that I'd be an incomplete person without my college education.
That's a very rich vein of thought, wondering about how self-definition of personhood plays into how few people take the essay coaching. I think there's something in that. I was on the state OPI's ELA standards revision task force this year, and a lot of the teachers on it from the small towns across the state kept bringing home how many of their kids--going into the family farm in a lot of cases--don't see the point in a lot of the standards, which are geared for the college-bound. Their reminders focused around the fact that these kids will still need to read and understand contracts, for example.
I'd be an incomplete person without my college education, too, though my family was always education-oriented on both sides. I loved my time there. I wonder if there is a way to bring the same world-understanding to high school students who aren't interested in going to college? I think of all those homesteaders and their pianos and treasured books. Willa Cather's "One of Ours" comes to mind.
I am in awe of the concept of Caras—the simultaneous tragedy and enormous gift of being able to travel through the multiverse based on the death of your other selves. What a brillliant conceit.
Isn’t it? Using the multiverse in a science fiction novel can be a cliche, but the concept of the Caras of that world took it so many different places.
A great essay, Antonia. "Stories like The Space Between Worlds can give us hope and a framework for going forward." I think that's the beginning of a great manifesto for storytelling or fiction writing. But we also need to learn to read these stories, and your teasing out of the meanings of The Space Between Worlds is a great exemplary reading. I haven't read a lot of sci-fi recently, but that one's going on my TBR list. Thank you.
Thank you, this was beautiful. The Broken Earth trilogy are among my favorite books. I haven't read fiction in so long, and I just finished a book and haven't started another yet, so I just ordered The Space Between Worlds. Sounds like one I will love! Maintaining my humanity in an inhumane world is something I'm really working on.
I *think* you will like it. Not that we know each other well, but just gleaning from your writing I have a feeling it will be up your alley. It’s not as dark as Broken Earth but isn’t hopepunk, either. Edgier.
I picked up a copy today and will start it tomorrow. I think I will like it, too. Sounds like exactly my kind of fiction book. And I'm very overdue to take a break from nonfiction.
Beautifully written and thought provoking. When I look at the conflicts happening in the world right now, I can see how reducing another people to less than human is used to justify atrocities
History is packed with these justifications. It’s despairing-full to see them keep happening, to watch people fall so easily prey to the same kinds dehumanizations that have been used for millennia. And yet there are more than ever who refuse that madness.
This: "With nature, too, give as well as receive. When I spend time by rivers or go on a walk or venture into the wilderness, I do not go without some kind of gift in thanks for receiving me, and Earth gets the first drink of coffee every morning, no matter how dark or cold outside." A thankful gift. An awareness and a not-taking-for-granted where you are and what you are being given in that moment. Beautiful.
Even here online, right? We can give and receive, slow down. The screen itself isn’t something I want to spend time with the way I want with a river, but the people with whom we hold these threads of relationship are.
This is so so interesting, Antonia! I have struggled for nearly thirty years to articulate what makes my daughter human -- it's certainly not verbal language or her ability to think, move, even breathe in the ways that make most of us "human" -- but it's also not a heartbeat or being "alive." I honestly don't know what it is, but the older I get the more I am able to feel what it is, if that makes sense.
It definitely makes sense. She *is*. It’s those who think the value of human life needs to be in some version of our productivity who force any of us to come up with reasoning for human-ness. (capitalism? Protestantism? Puritan culture? I have no idea.) One of my cousins with MS hasn’t moved beyond eating from a straw in close to 15 years. Curse all those, frankly, who questions someone’s humanness based on any of those comparisons. Maybe there’s something in there about a quality of being loved.
“To reframe a life that feels wrecked or warped by early wiring is a monumental task. To do it in the face of ongoing societal oppressions, others’ needs and valid expectations of us, our own self-doubt and insecurities, and the navigation of the very real self-centeredness of many people, is so exhausting and exhaustive that I despair of most of humanity ever making the effort.” Nia I can’t emphasise what a monumental insight this is and how this deeply intricate understanding of the nature of tireless shadow work and its interconnectedness with the broader world is foundational to our growth towards our best potential. To strive with the force of life towards the betterment of the world without craving even an ounce of recognition is a path towards sainthood. It is paramount to self realisation and living a deeply fulfilling life and yet it is the hardest thing to do because to seek acceptance and recognition is so innately human. Thank you Nia for always lighting up the way to new ideas with your research and insights. I am so grateful to have access to your work. 💜
Swarna, I knew we were kindred spirits! When writing that paragraph, I kept thinking, "How do I write about shadow work without calling it shadow work?" That you saw what I was getting at brings such a life to my heart, knowing we have that kind of mutual understanding.
"It is paramount to self realisation and living a deeply fulfilling life and yet it is the hardest thing to do because to seek acceptance and recognition is so innately human." It is. It really is. And I don't think it's a bad thing, either. We all need to be seen and known and understood. It's when it turns into a demon that eats oneself and/or others that it becomes a problem. I am beyond grateful for the way you keep a light in this world, for all of us, and I hope for those who have lost their way. 💚🧚🕯️
I see you Nia. I understand that sometimes popular terminology has some preconceived notions attached to them and hence it is best conveyed rephrased. I do that too a lot and it is a herculean task in deconstructive style of essay writing like yours. I so admire it and learn from you.
It is all but human to seek appreciation and validation for our work, our sense of belonging and to be seen is so innate that capitalists have even found a way to manipulate that. I digress but yeah there’s nothing wrong in seeking recognition for one’s time and their work’s value. My only prayer for this world is for people to transcend their fear of isolation and see that we are all children of the universe collecting skills and resources to serve our mother earth better. 💜
You are one of the best humans I have known in my three decades of human existence Nia. I deeply appreciate your tireless strive to make this world a better place for us to live, walk and connect to. 💜
No words, Swarna. That’s too much kindness and all I can do is offer the same thoughts of you and your work in return!
Hugs 🤗 💜
"But it is exactly what is needed to change the political, cultural, and social systems that make human life so consistently miserable and difficult."
It's like you wrote that paragraph just for me (and everybody else!). Powerful stuff, thank you. And for the sci-fi as well :)
It's what I keep running into in all this research ... if we don't deal with the interpersonal, the larger societal issues and horrors will continue to overrun us. And vice versa, too.
Thank you, Jake!
Wonderful.
If I can accurately transport myself back into my young child-mind and recall, or feel, how I experienced the world in those tender years, it seems that I saw personhood in many non-human entities. I would commune with them by way of a spirit of oneness, a spirit that walked with me everywhere I went.
Of course, the noise and the worries of the world would eventually corrupt that sacred connection and drive me deeper into a dualistic state of mind where I could better fit into the world as we know it. But I don't much care for the world as it is commonly constructed and experienced. Like virtually all others I have been trapped and imprisoned by it, to be sure, but I sense the wrongness of this world. I feel it deep within my bones. I sense the wrongness and the disharmony of this way of being, and in times of solitude I sometimes long for the courage to transcend it and allow myself to be swallowed up by the oneness of things. Maybe that's what happens when we die. We meld back into the One.
Your voice is soothing. I love listening to you read your essays.
Aw, thank you! Never thought my voice would be appreciated by anyone but my kids, but it's nice to hear!
Every time you write, I can sense how you sense the wrongness, the misalignment between what we're told is "real" or "just life" or "practical." You have a wonderful way to realigning those truths. Maybe that goes back to that childhood sensibility.
It's a thing to hang onto, for me, that so many people are able to still see and feel the this-world reality even in the face of so many structures and forces designed to make us forget. We're lucky to have access to places where we can still feel these connections in their overwhelming aliveness. To sit by a river all day and have no intrusion beyond a bird or two ... it's such a gift, in our world, to know that you can go places where you are reminded what it is to feel alive. 💚
Mmm you know I love this and all these fantastic recommendations! Thank you!! I love the murderbot series and this is also made me think of Becky chambers books and how she seamlessly introduces us to new species and even robots with their full humanity. You meet her characters and just know they matter - to each other and now to us, the readers.
Also that nurturing book about authoritarian parenting?? Adding it to my list immediately.
I have been taking small offerings when I visit the lake (a seed or bouquet of weeds or dried rose petals)…I love the idea of offering some coffee too 💙
The second book in the Wayfarers series, A Closed and Common Orbit, was brilliant on this point. I found it even more so than the Monk and Robot series because it showed the struggle of an AI trying to figure out who she was within the new form of a humanoid body, being taught to be human by a human who'd been raised by an AI ... convoluted idea maybe, but I thought she did it beautifully.
Riane Eisler's book is a little academic but I found it very readable and important in foundational ways. (She also wrote The Chalice & the Blade, which people are more familar with).
Love your gifts! Seeds and bouquets and dried petals ... 💚
I’m about a third way through long way to an angry planet!
I liked it but I liked Orbit a LOT more!
Oh my, that concept—of being able to travel through the multiverse because your other selves have died. Wow. Will have to explore.
Another beautiful essay, Antonia. Loved the trains in your background to accompany this concept of traveling, great carriers of humanity, of gifts of thanks (to me, the whistle of a passing train is gift). And if only we humans on a larger scale could stop believing we have any say over who is human. Sheesh. The conceit.
Such a conceit, isn't it? It still baffles me that so many people believe it. Want to believe it. What would it take more people to shift back to what is probably a more evolutionarily aligned state?
I feel lucky to live in a train town. Of all the things humans have invented, there's something about trains that stands out as more aligned with our true selves and needs. No idea why but the rhythm and call of them is soothing to many.
I'm rubbing my hands with glee that I've found another sci-fi lover who seems to have a lot of overlap in taste with me! I haven't read Space Between Worlds, but will put it on my list. I've read and loved all the others you mentioned. Also in this vein, esp Martha Wells, you've probably read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice series? Slow starter, but layers on thickly before long. How about An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon? That one has stuck with me. John Scalzi's Starter Villain fits the theme about who gets to be a person. Oh! And Naomi Novik's Temeraire series is pure fantasy but it is so much fun and so heartwarming, total page-turner - dragons deserve to be people, too. I bet you've read a lot of these already, I just get excited talking about fiction I love. :)
I actually struggled with Ancillary Justice but plan on getting back to it at some point. There was just something about it that kept losing my imagination -- you know, how they say we create virtual realities in our minds when we're reading? I kept losing that access. But will try again!
I have An Unkindness of Ghosts on my pile so will move it up soon! I got a whole bunch of recommendations last year that I have barely touched and am eager to. Do you read Sofia Samatar? Her collection of short stories "Tender" was one of my favorites last year. Short stories are really hard to do well but I loved every one of them, especially "The Red Thread."
Haven't heard of Temeraire but will put it on my pile, I definitely love fantasy, too! And I LOVE talking about fiction I love, which is part of why I agreed to do Threadable circles when they first launched. I can't seem to get into book clubs, no matter how much I like the people, but love love love talking about books. What's that about do you think?
I liked your gumbo piece. It’s a pity you didn’t have a chance to know Anna Davison’s better, and speak the language. I could wish that you had been with your father and his friends in Russia, the years before and after we married. The freedom you speak of was often severely compromised, and the gap between P’s understanding of how they might move and act — he had a famous actor father, and went where angels knew better than to take their asses - differed sharply from the experiences of the rest, who had learned what boundaries NOT to overstep. I was always really surprised to learn your father was in real fear of anything, but he was. You learn, what a police state is and can do, even to the best of people. Even Tsvetaeva found herself deserted, or cut off from any friends, in the country that had once revered her. Look into some of the memoirs.
All good points, Mama. And I wish more people understood what a police state can do even to the best people, without having to ahead and subject us all to one to experience it.
Sigh. Too true. I remember years - the ‘50’s and 60’s.. when people would say how they “couldn’t understand” how the Germans (or in Russia, the communists-) could ever have “chosen” to live under a dictatorship. WE could never do that, they said. So much for American exceptionalism! I’m hoping we pull through this - it’s like people thinking if they put their foot in a Bear trap, “just a little,” they can always pull it out if they don’t like it. The miracle was Mikhail Gorbachev, but greed had a hand in squelching that. The brave ones do get killed, too often, and others say the price is too high. Hard to argue with murderers.
Sorry, spellcheck doesn’t want to write Davidovna.
"Power has always dehumanized, un-peopled. Power has always needed to sever our relations from the rest of the living world as the first step to exploitation."
So true. Makes me think about Martin Buber's distinction between I/Thou and I/It relationships. We humans treat most people outside our family/tribe as an IT (object). Then exploitation is so easy.
Great writing Antonia! 👏
Yes! Once you dehumanize, it's just a series of steps to everything else. Start with water, then seeds, then women, ... who knows how many thousands of years ago, and pile mountains of justification on that bedrock over the centuries.
And thank you. ☺️
We have to do better than a society where we need "trash persons." So many people seem to have no sense of self-worth without comparison to others; how would they manage, if they were alone? Have they accomplished nothing that stands on its own, without competition?
Sometimes I see this need for validation come out in someone I didn’t think prone to it, and while I find it frustrating, it’s also a reminder of how often I fall into the same trap. That question, have they accomplished nothing that stands on its own, is such an important aspect of cultivating a sense of self-worth. We need people, I think, but just as much need to know who we are and accept ourselves without needing others to constantly reflect us back to ourselves.
“To reframe a life that feels wrecked or warped by early wiring is a monumental task. To do it in the face of ongoing societal oppressions, others’ needs and valid expectations of us, our own self-doubt and insecurities, and the navigation of the very real self-centeredness of many people, is so exhausting and exhaustive that I despair of most of humanity ever making the effort. But it is exactly what is needed to change the political, cultural, and social systems that make human life so consistently miserable and difficult.
Know thy self. To do so is to walk through fire. A submersion into darkness. It is not all that easy. The universe exacts a price to traverse that space.”
I really needed to read this today. This whole essay makes me feel seen, as cheesy as that sounds. The portion I quoted is exactly what I’m going through lately. The fact that you referenced works that I’ve read and loved - Broken Earth, A Memory Called Empire, Lord of the Rings - just goes to show how important their themes are for so many of us, including myself. It also goes to show that The Space Between Worlds is on my TBR for a reason! And that I should rectify that soon.
Thank you so much for this. I also love seeing your beautiful neighbors. This has inspired me to also appreciate nature and my neighbors within it this morning, with a hot cup of tea.
It does not sound cheesy at all. As someone who's gone through a lot of this in the past couple years, the relief of seeing myself in others' understanding of it, whether it's an essay or a YouTube video or a science fiction book, has been a lifesaver, no exaggeration.
And I'm glad to find others who love these books! Over and over in my life, science fiction and fantasy are where I find the best understanding of these deep human struggles. They find a way to make it all mean something.
The neighbors say hello. ;) I wish I'd taken a photo of the turkeys when they were babies. They're still cute, though. The whole family comes by every day to visit my brother-in-law's chickens next door, and then they hang out under the huge fir tree in the back yard. I've had worse neighbors!
I think this question of who gets to be a person and its opposite, who gets classified as a trash person, lies at the heart of our political division (not to mention the Middle East). So many layers to it. I've offered my college essay coaching pro bono to students at my old high school, but no one has taken me up on it in two years. Though I can understand why young people growing up in Troy might choose to define their personhood independently rather than placing themselves in a power structure defined by wealth. Part of me revels in that idea of people defying the rules, living outside the power structure however they can, even if another part of me knows that I'd be an incomplete person without my college education.
That's a very rich vein of thought, wondering about how self-definition of personhood plays into how few people take the essay coaching. I think there's something in that. I was on the state OPI's ELA standards revision task force this year, and a lot of the teachers on it from the small towns across the state kept bringing home how many of their kids--going into the family farm in a lot of cases--don't see the point in a lot of the standards, which are geared for the college-bound. Their reminders focused around the fact that these kids will still need to read and understand contracts, for example.
I'd be an incomplete person without my college education, too, though my family was always education-oriented on both sides. I loved my time there. I wonder if there is a way to bring the same world-understanding to high school students who aren't interested in going to college? I think of all those homesteaders and their pianos and treasured books. Willa Cather's "One of Ours" comes to mind.
I am in awe of the concept of Caras—the simultaneous tragedy and enormous gift of being able to travel through the multiverse based on the death of your other selves. What a brillliant conceit.
Isn’t it? Using the multiverse in a science fiction novel can be a cliche, but the concept of the Caras of that world took it so many different places.
Yes, I'm jealous of the creativity.
I am *very* jealous of the creativity. Stories like that make me wish I had a more fertile imagination, or at least enough to write fiction!
A great essay, Antonia. "Stories like The Space Between Worlds can give us hope and a framework for going forward." I think that's the beginning of a great manifesto for storytelling or fiction writing. But we also need to learn to read these stories, and your teasing out of the meanings of The Space Between Worlds is a great exemplary reading. I haven't read a lot of sci-fi recently, but that one's going on my TBR list. Thank you.
I would very much like to know what you think of it if you do read it!
Thank you, this was beautiful. The Broken Earth trilogy are among my favorite books. I haven't read fiction in so long, and I just finished a book and haven't started another yet, so I just ordered The Space Between Worlds. Sounds like one I will love! Maintaining my humanity in an inhumane world is something I'm really working on.
I *think* you will like it. Not that we know each other well, but just gleaning from your writing I have a feeling it will be up your alley. It’s not as dark as Broken Earth but isn’t hopepunk, either. Edgier.
I picked up a copy today and will start it tomorrow. I think I will like it, too. Sounds like exactly my kind of fiction book. And I'm very overdue to take a break from nonfiction.
Beautifully written and thought provoking. When I look at the conflicts happening in the world right now, I can see how reducing another people to less than human is used to justify atrocities
History is packed with these justifications. It’s despairing-full to see them keep happening, to watch people fall so easily prey to the same kinds dehumanizations that have been used for millennia. And yet there are more than ever who refuse that madness.
This: "With nature, too, give as well as receive. When I spend time by rivers or go on a walk or venture into the wilderness, I do not go without some kind of gift in thanks for receiving me, and Earth gets the first drink of coffee every morning, no matter how dark or cold outside." A thankful gift. An awareness and a not-taking-for-granted where you are and what you are being given in that moment. Beautiful.
Even here online, right? We can give and receive, slow down. The screen itself isn’t something I want to spend time with the way I want with a river, but the people with whom we hold these threads of relationship are.
This is so so interesting, Antonia! I have struggled for nearly thirty years to articulate what makes my daughter human -- it's certainly not verbal language or her ability to think, move, even breathe in the ways that make most of us "human" -- but it's also not a heartbeat or being "alive." I honestly don't know what it is, but the older I get the more I am able to feel what it is, if that makes sense.
It definitely makes sense. She *is*. It’s those who think the value of human life needs to be in some version of our productivity who force any of us to come up with reasoning for human-ness. (capitalism? Protestantism? Puritan culture? I have no idea.) One of my cousins with MS hasn’t moved beyond eating from a straw in close to 15 years. Curse all those, frankly, who questions someone’s humanness based on any of those comparisons. Maybe there’s something in there about a quality of being loved.
I think only poets can express what the rest of us feel but can't articulate. I'll bet you there's some great poetry that resonates!