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kuangningI just finished Time Pressure, so this is all Dougie's fault, really. I read the book straight through, not wanting to break the flow - and I've got a couple of thoughts, but most of them aren't ready to be pinned down yet.
The book closes with a magnificent exhortation. That, I'm going to talk about.
Do you understand now why I'm telling this story to you, and why I don't much care one way or another whether you believe it? If you choose to do so, all that you can do about it is to stop being so afraid of death, personal and planetary, and to start living as if you are one day going to have to account for your actions to everyone you have ever loved. How can that hurt?
It's now the Nineteen-Eighties, and pessimism and despair are in fashion. There are almost no hippies left on the Mountain. Fundamentalists rage through the world like angry beasts. Belief in apocalypse is everywhere, and a numb dumb fatalistic yearning to get it over with. Wonderful excuses to abandon responsibility. Every day our news-media bring us a billion cries of pain, and there is nothing we can do about it - as individuals. Small wonder we feel the growing urge to put ourselves out of our misery.
Hang on. Just for a couple of decades, that's all I ask. The cavalry is coming. It is a pitcher of cream you're drowning in: keep churning. If you don't, you're going to feel really stupid one day soon. Keep living as though it mattered - because it does.
-- Spider Robinson, Time Pressure.
With all due respect for the man - I adore his writing, he kept me reading and sometimes sniffling and sometimes laughing out loud for five hours - the cavalry is NOT coming. The machine is broken, we cannot count on it. We have already spent far too much time on the beach, manning the signal fires, waiting for the end or for rescue, whichever came first. To hold out hope of rescue, even then, but more so now, is to encourage escapism and enable complacency.
Nothing is going to save us.
Cause for despair? Hell, no. A reason to dig our heels in and show why we're the dominant life on this planet. We have all the materials necessary, we are the tool-users, and our greatest and most versatile tools have always been ourselves. Our minds, our hearts, our bodies. Our ideas. The most powerful thing we'll ever encounter anywhere, on this planet or any other, is a dedicated human being with an idea. We've proven again and again that even ideas backed by the strength of hatred and flawed in logic can change the course of events. I refuse to believe that a sound idea cannot do the same, backed by the strength of love. Make love itself the sound idea - love for yourself, love for your family, love for your home, for your nation, for humanity.... and what can't we do? What can't we accomplish?
That sounds either Polly-Annaish or just plain cockeyed, I know. Everything in the world we live in screams that pessimism is just plain sense, it's safe to keep your head down and tuck your chin in and don't rock the boat. And I don't know that I'm advocating anything revolutionary - love, after all, starts at home. With yourself. With loving your self enough to not destroy yourself or let yourself be destroyed, maybe the simplest urge of all. With doing what's best for yourself. I happen to think, though, that once you start seeing it that way, you eventually start to think that what's long-term best for yourself is a life of peace and productivity in a place of peace and liberty. After that... well, what happens after that is harder to say. Most of us haven't gotten to the first step yet.
They say it's a river, that circles the Earth;
A beam of light, shining to the edge of the universe.
It conquers all...
It changes everything.
They say it's a blessing; they say it's a gift.
They say it's a miracle, and I believe that it is.
It conquers all...
- Vanessa Williams
The book closes with a magnificent exhortation. That, I'm going to talk about.
Do you understand now why I'm telling this story to you, and why I don't much care one way or another whether you believe it? If you choose to do so, all that you can do about it is to stop being so afraid of death, personal and planetary, and to start living as if you are one day going to have to account for your actions to everyone you have ever loved. How can that hurt?
It's now the Nineteen-Eighties, and pessimism and despair are in fashion. There are almost no hippies left on the Mountain. Fundamentalists rage through the world like angry beasts. Belief in apocalypse is everywhere, and a numb dumb fatalistic yearning to get it over with. Wonderful excuses to abandon responsibility. Every day our news-media bring us a billion cries of pain, and there is nothing we can do about it - as individuals. Small wonder we feel the growing urge to put ourselves out of our misery.
Hang on. Just for a couple of decades, that's all I ask. The cavalry is coming. It is a pitcher of cream you're drowning in: keep churning. If you don't, you're going to feel really stupid one day soon. Keep living as though it mattered - because it does.
-- Spider Robinson, Time Pressure.
With all due respect for the man - I adore his writing, he kept me reading and sometimes sniffling and sometimes laughing out loud for five hours - the cavalry is NOT coming. The machine is broken, we cannot count on it. We have already spent far too much time on the beach, manning the signal fires, waiting for the end or for rescue, whichever came first. To hold out hope of rescue, even then, but more so now, is to encourage escapism and enable complacency.
Nothing is going to save us.
Cause for despair? Hell, no. A reason to dig our heels in and show why we're the dominant life on this planet. We have all the materials necessary, we are the tool-users, and our greatest and most versatile tools have always been ourselves. Our minds, our hearts, our bodies. Our ideas. The most powerful thing we'll ever encounter anywhere, on this planet or any other, is a dedicated human being with an idea. We've proven again and again that even ideas backed by the strength of hatred and flawed in logic can change the course of events. I refuse to believe that a sound idea cannot do the same, backed by the strength of love. Make love itself the sound idea - love for yourself, love for your family, love for your home, for your nation, for humanity.... and what can't we do? What can't we accomplish?
That sounds either Polly-Annaish or just plain cockeyed, I know. Everything in the world we live in screams that pessimism is just plain sense, it's safe to keep your head down and tuck your chin in and don't rock the boat. And I don't know that I'm advocating anything revolutionary - love, after all, starts at home. With yourself. With loving your self enough to not destroy yourself or let yourself be destroyed, maybe the simplest urge of all. With doing what's best for yourself. I happen to think, though, that once you start seeing it that way, you eventually start to think that what's long-term best for yourself is a life of peace and productivity in a place of peace and liberty. After that... well, what happens after that is harder to say. Most of us haven't gotten to the first step yet.
They say it's a river, that circles the Earth;
A beam of light, shining to the edge of the universe.
It conquers all...
It changes everything.
They say it's a blessing; they say it's a gift.
They say it's a miracle, and I believe that it is.
It conquers all...
- Vanessa Williams
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 05:37 pm (UTC)I think you just put into words some of why I despised time pressure. I enjoy the Callahans books, I enjoyed Mindkiller to no end. but after reading Time Pressure, I've been hard pressed to read more by Spider, it just really really rubbed me the wrong way.
I agree with you. Doesn't change the fact that I have trouble motivating myself to do anything about it, but I agree.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 11:53 pm (UTC)Perhaps I should give it another go, but it just bothered me a lot.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-04 12:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-04 12:17 am (UTC)I don't remember why I didn't like it, just that it really left me rubbed wrong. So it may be time. *Shrug* I'm certainly not rushing to.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-04 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-04 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-04 10:15 pm (UTC)There's nothing you can sing that can't be sung
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're s'posed to be
It's easy....
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is LOVE, dove,
Love is all you need.