Jake spouting nonsense about Parable of the Sower

 Hello reader. Again I present a blog post that is primarily not writing: a map of the characters that emerge in the later half of the book and their relationships to each other. The first Earthseed community is composed of a diverse set, and while creating this map I gained an appreciation for how the group grew and evolved along their journey through California. To wrap up this blog post series, I wanted to come back to the concept of God as change. In the last two "mapping" blog posts, I've explored how location and social connections changed drastically for all the characters throughout the story. But more than that, we can see how the intentions changed - the intended path and the destination as far as geography is concerned, and with social connections, the changing nature of how people joined the traveler group. And I guess I could end with something sappy like how God was with them along their journey, but I'm really more interested in how deceptively stable t...

 So for this blog post, there may not be many words, but instead images. I'm doing something I've been wanting to do ever since the route planning scene in Chapter 20 - develop a visual understanding of Lauren's journey. So Lauren starts out in "Robledo", which is about 20 miles away from Los Angeles (according to Wikipedia), and I couldn't find a real community called "Robledo", so for the purpose of mapping out Lauren's path, I'll just use Los Angeles itself as a starting point. We know that Lauren, Harry, and Zahra walked along the 118, 23, and 101 freeways on their path from LA to Santa Barbara, so here's that: Then we know that they walked a long way on the 101, and the next place I can find them mentioning is Salinas, CA. They find the radio earpiece that tells them to stay away from the Bay Area, leading them to turn east through San Juan Bautista, Hollister, by the San Luis Reservoir, then along I-5 through Sacramento. Their final...

 At the beginning of Chapter 12: "We are Earthseed The life that perceives itself Changing." This excerpt is baffling to me for a number of reasons: - Who is Earthseed, sorry? Is it the collective of all the people who follow the religion Earthseed? If so, maybe "we" should be rephrased "I". Otherwise, perhaps it's the human species. In that case, maybe the name "Earthseed" refers to humans and our potential to grow and cultivate power structures, tools, items, ideas, and societies. But... - Self-awareness isn't limited to Lauren, if the former is correct, or humans, if the latter is correct. Plenty of animals perceive themselves. But I guess I'm forgetting the last line, which with the second makes:  "The life that perceives itself changing." ...Okay, this was supposed to be a blog post about how this makes no sense, but I think I figured something out here. Know how a lot of people in Lauren's community are in denial a...

In traumatic situations, people develop mental shells. During genocides, wars, and other situations in which lots of human suffering and other atrocities are happening, people are known to numb themselves to the pain and suffering of others. It's one of the nastier survival mechanisms, for sure. But what is up with Keith? Lauren and Keith seem to be on extremes of the empathy spectrum. That's obviously the main reason why they don't understand each other and thus don't particularly like each other, but even with her fictional hyperempathy syndrome, Lauren's much easier to relate to in terms of how she sees and treats the suffering of others.  'Cause... well... Keith's a murderer. And probably a drug dealer and definitely a robber. And he doesn't seem to be troubled in the least by any of it. The way I would imagine numbing one's self to suffering of others is to stop trying to help other people, and just look out for yourself and members of your smal...

Welcome to an interview with the voices inside my head. Today's topic is Olivar. Question one - Is Olivar a safe place to go? Voice 1: No, nowhere is safe in this world except for a remote place far away from society. Get as far away from humans as possible and try to survive. Voice 2: Olivar seems like it could become a place of tyranny and exploitation by the company that's taken over, but at least there's some centralized power. Lauren's community is falling apart, and even if Olivar guarantees things slowly getting worse, there's no constant fear of the destruction of everything keeping you afloat. Voice 1: Olivar seems rather scary because the company can trade you temporary safety for your power. Sure, the outside world can tear apart Lauren's community, but they can always rebuild. If their individual liberties get stripped from them slowly in Olivar, they'll be trapped and can't better their own situation. Voice 2: Fine. But then Lauren needs to ...