Kirby on Survival

  

“Now, the idea that A Story is a form of Communication — and entertainment — is one of those facts that appears self-evident upon first consideration, but that becomes more mysterious the longer it is pondered. 

If it is True that A Story has A Point, then it is clear that it is pointing TO something.

But What, and How? 

What constitutes Pointing is obvious when it is an action specifying a particular thing, or a person by a particular person, but much less obvious when it is something typifying the cumulative behavior, shall we say, of
A Character in A Story.

“ There is an old saying: "That which doesn't Kill You, makes You Stronger." I don't believe that. 

I think the things that TRY to Kill You, make you Angry and Sad. 

Strength comes from The Good Things : Your Family, Your Friends, The Satisfaction of Hard Work. 

Those are the things that will keep you Whole. Those are the things to hold onto when You are Broken.

— Jax Teller

"What Happens to People when they are acted-upon by Powerful Ideas from Outside Them?"

AND...

"What Then Happens to Those Powerful Ideas, when They get inside Those People's Heads..?

There are Tigers in The Night.

Creatures bearing great scars inflicted by wrenching confrontations -- lethal rushes on dark, unyielding ground where the body pours all it's strength into fitful instinctive thrusts.

This is The Real Thing! The primal struggle. Throughout history it has cried out for dramatisation on A Cave Wall, The Written Page, or The Panel of a Comic Book.

In my attempt to create a serious novel for our medium, I have chosen that most basic of experiences, one we have all shared at one time or another -- SURVIVAL. I have taken this innate response to danger and have portrayed it in mythological terms.

The concept is simple. Friends and Enemies squaring off in various ways, for various reasons, on some Eternal Battleground where all is won or lost and the debris is cleared away for the next conflict. THEY are Evil, WE are Good. THEY are Plotters and Traitors, WE are Loyal and Clever. THEY are eternally responsible for Our Woes, so WE will someday pull up our guts, stop the shadow-boxing, and go in for The Kill.

Thus I am doing what mankind has always done. I've turned these emotions and reactions into gods, and brought into view the awesome images that haunt our dreams. So it has been throughout the centuries. 

When Zeus' and Hercules' time had passed, Mercury and Mars arrived on the scene. France sent Napoleon's Grande Armée on tour; England subsequently hailed the unshakable heroes of Rudyard Kipling. 

Idols rose and fell all over the world with an odd and fantastic nobility that fairly flipped our history books. 

How we loved them all -- our Horatios at the bridge, our Transylvanian Draculas. 

Grandiose figures such as these symbolized The Real Thing. Territories immemorial have been covered with Average Joe types doing what they've always done "in the name of (fill in the name of your choice; all sides have continually offered so many). 

When my turn came at the draft board during World War II, I chose Superman as My Guardian. Tarzan, at that moment, seemed somehow related to my early teens. Superman was the electrifying hero of the day. Who was going to rub out a guy who hid behind such a patriotic and invincible image? There was even talk in the army about General Eisenhower trading pulp magazines for copies of Action Comics. How could I have landed in a better outfit? It eased my trepidations about having my hair parted by a twenty millimeter shell. 

Experiences like these seem to stimulate and guide one's thoughts into avenues where one's humanity must be examined in relation to The Past, Present, and Future. Darkseid, Highfather, and the rest of the cast have always been sincere expressions of my feelings - reactions to all the things I knew were out there in The Night, like the scrabbling of an unseen army of claws, or the beating of wings in nocturnal vigilance over sleepers in repose. 

Today The Real Thing is something we've never known before, a new something not yet devised, shaped, or defined. It is something we must deeply consider, since Darkseid looms ever larger, like a great, monumental cobra moving ceaselessly and vengefully. 

Ever-present, he is thwarted, sometimes outsmarted, but always eager to swallow us en masse and integrate us into his push-button paradise where his every wish is fulfilled. 

For Darkseid is the god of the silo that houses the death-package. He rules the toxic wastelands and merrily increases their rate of expansion. He seeps into our hatreds and prejudices, and nurtures our biases until they become time bombs --primed and ready to activate The Worst in us. 

Darkseid is playing for keeps in a cosmic minefield that's never supposed to blow After all, isn't that where we all are? Isn't that where we live? Aren't we at the apex of the Big Blast? Well, that's the backyard I'm playing in. 

How is it going to turn out? Suffice it to say that like Darkseid, I too play for keeps. You see, I'm walking that same cosmic minefield. What I have in mind for the Hunger Dogs graphic novel will make your blood race. What will they do, these gods whose situations so strangely resemble our own? The bottom line involves choices. 

Neither gods nor humans have ever stood calmly in a minefield forever. 

Good or Evil, they are bound to choose. And when they do, you will see The Truth of all that motivates us. As a thinking being, you have the obligation to choose. If the fate of all mankind were in your hands, what would your decision be? 

As a Writer and An Artist, I've drawn my answer.

Fascination

MEDITATION IN A TOOLSHED

by C.S. Lewis

I WAS STANDING TODAY IN THE DARK TOOLSHED. THE SUN was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitchblack. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it.

Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. 

Instead I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences. 

But this is only a very simple example of the difference between looking at and looking along. 

A young man meets a girl. The whole world looks different when he sees her. Her voice reminds him of something he has been trying to remember all his life, and ten minutes casual chat with her is more precious than all the favours that all other women in the world could grant. 

He is, as they say, `in love'. 

Now comes a scientist and describes this young man's experience from the outside. For him it is all an affair of the young man's genes and a recognised biological stimulus. That is the difference between looking along the sexual impulse and looking at it.

When you have got into the habit of making this distinction you will find examples of it all day long. 

The mathematician sits thinking, and to him it seems that he is contemplating timeless and spaceless truths about quantity. But the cerebral physiologist, if he could look inside the mathematician's head, would find nothing timeless and spaceless there - only tiny movements in the grey matter. 

The savage dances in ecstasy at midnight before Nyonga and feels with every muscle that his dance is helping to bring the new green crops and the spring rain and the babies. The anthropologist, observing that savage, records that he is performing a fertility ritual of the type so-and-so. 

The girl cries over her broken doll and feels that she has lost a real friend; the psychologist says that her nascent maternal instinct has been temporarily lavished on a bit of shaped and coloured wax.

As soon as you have grasped this simple distinction, it raises A Question. You get one experience of a thing when you look along it and another when you look at it. 

Which is the `true' or `valid' experience? 

Which tells you most about the thing? 

And you can hardly ask that question without noticing that for the last fifty years or so everyone has been taking the answer for granted. 

It has been assumed without discussion that if you want the true account of religion you must go, not to religious people, but to anthropologists; that if you want the true account of sexual love you must go, not to lovers, but to psychologists; that if you want to understand some `ideology' (such as medieval chivalry or the nineteenth-century idea of a `gentleman'), you must listen not to those who lived inside it, but to sociologists.

The people who look at things have had it all their own way; the people who look along things have simply been brow-beaten. It has even come to be taken for granted that the external account of a thing somehow refutes or `debunks' the account given from inside. 

`All these moral ideals which look so transcendental and beautiful from inside', says the wiseacre, `are really only a mass of biological instincts and inherited taboos.' 

And no one plays the game the other way round by replying, `If you will only step inside, the things that look to you like instincts and taboos will suddenly reveal their real and transcendental nature.'

That, in fact, is the whole basis of the specifically `modern' type of thought. And is it not, you will ask, a very sensible basis? For, after all, we are often deceived by things from the inside. For example, the girl who looks so wonderful while we're in love, may really be a very plain, stupid, and disagreeable person. The savage's dance to Nyonga does not really cause the crops to grow. Having been so often deceived by looking along, are we not well advised to trust only to looking at? - in fact to discount all these inside experiences?

Well, no. There are two fatal objections to discounting them all. And the first is this. You discount them in order to think more accurately. But you can't think at all - and therefore, of course, can't think accurately - if you have nothing to think about. 

A physiologist, for example, can study Pain and find out that it `is' (whatever is means) such and such neural events. But the word Pain would have no meaning for him unless he had `been inside' by actually suffering. If he had never looked along pain he simply wouldn't know what he was looking at. The very subject for his inquiries from outside exists for him only because he has, at least once, been inside.This case is not likely to occur, because every man has felt pain. But it is perfectly easy to go on all your life giving explanations of religion, love, morality, honour, and the like, without having been inside any of them. And if you do that, you are simply playing with counters. You go on explaining a thing without knowing what it is. That is why a great deal of contemporary thought is, strictly speaking, thought about nothing - all the apparatus of thought busily working in a vacuum.The other objection is this: let us go back to the toolshed. I might have discounted what I saw when looking along the beam (i.e., the leaves moving and the sun) on the ground that it was `really only a strip of dusty light in a dark shed'. That is, I might have set up as `true' my `side vision' of the beam. But then that side vision is itself an instance of the activity we call seeing. And this new instance could also be looked at from outside. I could allow a scientist to tell me that what seemed to be a beam of light in a shed was `really only an agitation of my own optic nerves'. And that would be just as good (or as bad) a bit of debunking as the previous one. The picture of the beam in the toolshed would now have to be discounted just as the previous picture of the trees and the sun had been discounted. And then, where are you?In other words, you can step outside one experience only by stepping inside another. Therefore, if all inside experiences are misleading, we are always misled. The cerebral physiologist may say, if he chooses, that the mathematician's thought is `only' tiny physical movements of the grey matter. But then what about the cerebral physiologist's own thought at that very moment? A second physiologist, looking at it, could pronounce it also to be only tiny physical movements in the first physiologist's skull. Where is the rot to end?The answer is that we must never allow the rot to begin. We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, intrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything. In particular cases we shall find reason for regarding the one or the other vision as inferior. Thus the inside vision of rational thinking must be truer than the outside vision which sees only movements of the grey matter; for if the outside vision were the correct one all thought (including this thought itself) would be valueless, and this is self-contradictory. You cannot have a proof that no proofs matter. On the other hand, the inside vision of the savage's dance to Nyonga may be found deceptive because we find reason to believe that crops and babies are not really affected by it. In fact, we must take each case on its merits. But we must start with no prejudice for or against either kind of looking. We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether both are equally wrong. We just have to find out. But the period of brow-beating has got to end.   

 

 

SCRAPS

  1

 YES,' MY FRIEND SAID. `I DON'T SEE WHY THERE SHOULDN'T be books in Heaven. But you will find that your library in Heaven contains only some of the books you had on earth.' `Which?' I asked. `The ones you gave away or lent.' `I hope the lent ones won't still have all the borrowers' dirty thumb marks,' said I. `Oh yes they will,' said he. `But just as the wounds of the martyrs will have turned into beauties, so you will find that the thumb-marks have turned into beautiful illuminated capitals or exquisite marginal woodcuts.' z

 `The angels', he said, `have no senses; their experience is purely intellectual and spiritual. That is why we know something about God which they don't. There are particular aspects of His love and joy which can be communicated to a created being only by sensuous experience. Something of God which the Seraphim can never quite understand flows into us from the blue of the sky, the taste of honey, the delicious embrace of water whether cold or hot, and even from sleep itself.' 3

 `You are always dragging me down,' said I to my Body. `Dragging you down!' replied my Body. `Well I like that! Who taught me to like tobacco and alcohol? You, of course, with your idiotic adolescent idea of being "grown-up". My palate loathed both at first: but you would have your way. Who put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to sleep. Who does his best to keep you from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches and indigestion? Eh?T 'And what about sex?' said I. `Yes, what about it?' retorted the Body. `If you and your wretched imagination would leave me alone I'd give you no trouble. That's Soul all over; you give me orders and then blame me for carrying them out.' 4

 `Praying for particular things', said I, `always seems to me like advising God how to run the world. Wouldn't it be wiser to assume that He knows best?T 'On the same principle', said he, `I suppose you never ask a man next to you to pass the salt, because God knows best whether you ought to have salt or not. And I suppose you never take an umbrella, because God knows best whether you ought to be wet or dry.' `That's quite different,' I protested. `I don't see why,' said he. `The odd thing is that He should let us influence the course of events at all. But since He lets us do it in one way I don't see why He shouldn't let us do it in the other.'

The Ugly

It’s Perfectly Understandable :

He cut off Your Arm —

You wanted Revenge.

….That Rug really tied The Room together, did it not.

The Man in Black 

fled across 

The Desert —

— and 

The Gunslinger 

followed.

….You’ve got Red on You.



I am on The Side of Life —

Ultron isn’t.

He will End it All.

ANGEL'S OFFICE - DAY 

Angel and Spike are sitting, talking, 

while Wesley stares into nothingness. 

SPIKE 

No army of doom scorching the earth. 

Huzzah for our side. 

ANGEL 

We need to close The Gateway to Illyria's Temple. Permanently. I don't want any more surprises. 

SPIKE 

What about the leather queen? 

ANGEL 

She still has enough juice to be A Threat. 

We regroup and we take care of it. Wes? 

WESLEY 

It's all we can do. 

I'll be in the lab. (walks out) 

SPIKE 

(sighs) 

Long day.

 (sniffs) 

That offer still Good? 

Send me abroad, 

roving agent and all? 

ANGEL 

Yeah, it's still Good. 

SPIKE 

Great. (sighs) 

Maybe we should send Gunn... 

before Wes has another poke. 

ANGEL 

(sits up, surprised) 

You're not leaving? 

SPIKE 

This is What She Would Have Wanted. 

(looks at Angel, surprising himself — ) 

It's What I Want. 

I don't really like you. 

Suppose I never will. 

But This is Important, 

What's Happening here. 

Fred gave Her Life for it —

The least I can do is give what's left of mine. 

(looks out the window) 

The Fight's comin', Angel. 

We both feel it... 

and it's gonna be a hell of a lot bigger than Illyria. 

Things are gonna get ugly —

That's where I live.

PICARD: 

'For now we see 

but through A Glass Darkly'

DATA: 

Sir?

PICARD: 

He said He's A Mirror.

DATA : 

Of You, sir?

PICARD: 

Yes.

DATA: 

I Do Not Agree. 

Although you share 

The Same Genetic Structure, 

The Events of Your Life have created 

A Unique Individual.

PICARD: 

If I had lived His Life, is it possible 

I would have rejected My Humanity?

IF YOU HAD LIVED HIS LIFE, 

THEN YOU WOULDN’T BE YOU — 

So, No.

DATA: 

The B-4 is Physically Identical to Me, 

although his neural pathways are not as advanced. 

But even if they were, 

He would not be Me.

PICARD: 

How can you be sure?

DATA: 

I aspire, sir, to be Better Than I am. 

B-4 Does Not. Nor Does Shinzon.

You got What You Wanted, Tiger. 

How does it taste?

OK. You read me well enough.

But why can't I read you?

Don't bother.

Dodge, there — 

He's not Like Me at all. 

But he makes sense.

He'd walk naked into a live volcano if he thought

he could learn something that no other Man knew.

But you... You're no Seeker. You're negative.

And I'm not prepared to die.

I’d like to know why not.

You thought Life on Earth was meaningless. 

You despised People.

So what did you do? 

You ran out.

No. It's not like that, Landon.

l'm A Seeker too. 

But My Dreams aren't like Yours.

I can't help thinking somewhere 

there has to be something 

Better Than Man. 

Has to be.

The Bad

The Good

Prime

prime (adj.)

late 14c., "first, original, first in order of time," from Old French prime and directly from Latin primus "first, the first, first part," figuratively "chief, principal; excellent, distinguished, noble" (source also of Italian and Spanish primo), from Proto-Italic *prismos, superlative of PIE *preis- "before," from root *per- (1) "forward," hence "in front of, before, first, chief."

 

The meaning "of fine quality, of the first excellence" is from c. 1400. The meaning "first in rank, degree, or importance" is from 1610s in English. Arithmetical sense (as in prime number, one indivisible without a remainder except by 1) is from 1560s; prime meridian "the meridian of the earth from which longitude is measured, that of Greenwich, England," is from 1878. Prime time originally (c. 1500) meant "spring time;" the broadcasting sense of "peak tuning-in period" is attested by 1961.

prime (n.)

"earliest canonical hour of the day" (6 a.m.), from Old English prim and Old French prime and directly from Medieval Latin prima "the first service," from Latin prima hora "the first hour" (of the Roman day), from Latin primus "first, the first, first part" (see prime (adj.)).  (In classical Latin, the noun uses of the adjective meant "first part, beginning; leading place.")

 

By extension, "the first division of the day" 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. (early 13c.). The sense of "beginning of a period or course of events" is from late 14c. From the notion of "the period or condition of greatest vigor in life" (by 1530s) comes the specific sense "springtime of human life" (often meaning ages roughly 21 to 28) is from 1590s. Also from 1590s as "that which is best in quality, highest or most perfect state of anything." As "a prime number," by 1530s.

prime (v.)

"to fill, charge, load" (a weapon, before firing), 1510s, probably from prime (adj.). General sense of "perform the first operation on, prepare (something, especially wood, etc., for painting)" is from c. 1600. To prime a pump (1769) meant to pour water down the tube, which saturated the sucking mechanism and made it draw up water more readily. 

Related: Primed; priming.

Genesis Chapter 4

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

And Cain talked with Abel his brother : and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

“Behold, Thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.

If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

"And Adam knew Eve his wife; 

and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, 

“I have gotten a man from the Lord.”

This is after Adam and Eve have been chased out of the garden of Eden. What’s really cool about this—I really think that the Cain and Abel story is the most profound story I’ve ever read, especially given that you can tell it in 15 seconds. I won’t, because I tend not to tell stories in 15 seconds, as you may have noticed. But you can read the whole thing that quickly. It’s so densely packed that it’s actually unbelievable.

Ok, so the first thing is that Adam and Eve are not the first two human beings. Cain and Abel are the first two human beings. Adam and Eve were made by God, and they were born in paradise. It’s like, what kind of human beings are those? You don’t know any human beings like that.Human beings aren’t born in paradise and made by God. Human beings are born of other human beings. That’s the first thing. It’s post-fall. We’re out in history, now. We’re not in some archetypal beyond—although we are still, to some degree. Not to the degree that was the case with the story of Adam and Eve. We’ve already been thrown out of the garden; we’re already self-conscious; we’re already awake; we’re already covered; we’re already working. We’re full-fledged human beings. So you have the first two human beings: Cain and Abel; prototypical human beings.

What’s cool is that humanity enters history at the end of the story of Adam and Eve, and then the archetypal patterns for human behaviour are instantaneously presented.It’s absolutely mind boggling, and it’s not a very nice story. They’re hostile brothers. They’ve got their hands around each other’s throats, so to speak, or at least that’s the case in one direction. It’s a story of the first two human beings engaged in a fratricidal struggle, that ends in the death of the best one of them. That’s the story of human beings in history. If that doesn’t give you nightmares, you didn’t understand the damn story.

Now, in these hostile brother stories, which are very, very common, often the older brother—Cain—has some advantages. He’s the older brother, and, in an agricultural community, the older brother generally inherited the land, and not the younger brothers. And the reason for that was, well, let’s say you have like eight sons, and you have enough land to support a bit of a family, and you divide among your eight sons, and they have eight sons, and they divide it among their eight sons. Soon, everyone has a little postage stamp that they can stand on and starve to death on. And so that just doesn’t work. You hand the land in a piece to the eldest son, and that’s just how it is. It’s tough luck for the rest of them, but at least they know they’re gonna have to go and make their own way. It’s not fair, but there’s no way of making it fair.

Well, you might say the oldest son has an additional stake in the stability of the current hierarchy. He has more of a stake in the status quo. That makes him more of an emblematic representative of the status quo, and, perhaps, more likely to be blind in its favor. It’s something like that. That motif creeps up very frequently in the hostile brothers archetypal struggle. The story of Cain and Abel fits this pattern, because Cain is the one who won’t budge, and who won’t move. He’s stubborn. Whereas the younger son, who’s Abel, is often the one who’s more…Not so much of a revolutionary, but, perhaps, more of a balance between the revolutionary and the traditions, whereas the older son tends to be more traditionalist-authoritarian—in these metaphorical representations, at least.

"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord." 

There’s the first human being: Cain. I told you that the Mesopotamians thought that mankind was made out of the blood of the worst demon that the great goddess of chaos could imagine. Well, the first human being is a murderer, and not only a murderer, but a murderer of his own brother. And so, you know, the Old Testament, that’s a hell of a harsh book. And you might think, well, maybe that’s a little bit too much to bear. And then you might think, yea, and maybe it’s true, too. So that’s something to think about.

Human beings are amazing creatures. To think about us as a plague on the planet is its own kind of bloody catastrophe—malevolent, low, quasi-genocidal metaphor. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t without our problems. The fact that this book, that sits at the cornerstone of our culture, would present the first man as a murderer of his brother, is something that should really set you back on your heels.

“When you were young, you needed something you did not receive, and you will never receive it. And the proper attitude is mourning.” Mourning is the proper attitude, NOT BLAME. Mourning. And she says another thing, so wonderful. She says, “You know, when you came into the world, you brought this fantastic thing with you, coming from centuries and eons and you brought this amazing energy in from animal life, reptile life, other planets and everything. And this incredible energy you brought in, and your parents didn’t want it, they wanted a nice boy. They wanted a nice girl.”

You couldn’t believe it. That’s your first rejection. It’s preverbal. That’s why encounter groups won’t get to that. That’s your first rejection, and it’s profound. They didn’t want the energy you brought. They wanted a nice boy or a nice girl.

So when you’re small, you realise you can’t fight against that stuff your parents want a nice so you make up a kind of a false personality. T.S. Eliot wrote about that, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. You invent a false personality, and you survive. And then Alice Miller says, 

“Now, please, you’ve got to forgive yourself for that, because you did it TO SURVIVE, and you did the right thing. You did the right thing.” And the proof of it is that YOU’RE ALIVE RIGHT NOW.”

Quitting my day job and starting my life as a writer was a tremendous risk. It was A Fool’s Leap, A Shot in The Dark, but anything of any value in our lives – whether that be a career, a work of art, a relationship – will always start with such A Leap. And in order to be able to make it you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding.”  

~ Alan Moore.

God : 

Enough! Both of you, 

sit down. Sit down. 

For all these years I've been plagued by what went wrong. 

With all of your complexities, Lore, 

your nuances, basic emotions seemed almost simple by comparison. 

But the emotion turned, and twisted, became entangled with ambition. 

Lore, if I had known you were no longer sitting in pieces on some distant shelf, 

if I had known that I could simply press a button and bring you here, 

I would have spent those years trying to make things right for you as well. 

But all I knew of was Data. 

So I worked long and hard, and now I believe I've succeeded. 

This is why I brought you here, Data. 

Basic emotions. Simple feelings, Data. Your feelings. 

I've imagined how hard it's been for you, 

living amongst beings so moved by emotion. 


(Both androids stare at the tiny chip held in the tweezers) 


Cain : 

I don't have to imagine. 

I know how hard it's been. 

You'd be surprised, Data. 

Feelings do funny things. 

You may even learn to understand your evil brother. 

To forgive him. 

We will be more alike, Data, 

you and I. You'll see. 

I'm happy for you. 


Abel : 

I question your sincerity, Lore. 


God : 

Perhaps with this you'll learn to be more trusting, Data. 

Your brother has had good reason to be bitter. 


Abel : 

But sir, Lore was responsible for 
—

God : 

He wasn't given the chance that you and I were given, to live. 

But now I'm sure he understands why I had to do what I had to do. 


If there were only time, Lore. 

What a shame.

 The procedure is quite simple. 

I'm tired. I need to rest, first, 

I'm tired. 

You.

By any analysis, 

Evil should always win. 

Good is not a 

practical Survival Strategy — 

It requires 

Loyalty, Self-Sacrifice 

and er, Love. 

So, WHY does Good prevail? 

What keeps The Balance between 

Good and Evil 

in this appalling universe? 

A simile (/ˈsɪməli/) is a figure of speech 

that DIRECTLY compares TWO Things.

Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between Two Things using comparison words such as “LIKE”, “as”, “so”, or “ than”, while other metaphors create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something “IS” Something Else).

This distinction is evident in the etymology of the words: simile derives from the Latin word similis (“similar, LIKE”), while metaphor derives from the Greek word metapherein (“to transfer”).

PICARD: 

'For now we see 

but through A Glass, Darkly'

DATA: 

Sir?

PICARD: 

He said He's A Mirror.

DATA : 

Of You, sir?

PICARD: 

Yes.

DATA: 

..…I Do Not Agree —

Although you share the same genetic structure, the events of Your Life have created 

A Unique Individual.

PICARD: 

If I had lived His Life, is it possible 

I would have rejected My Humanity?

DATA: 

The B-4 is physically identical to Me, 

although his neural pathways are not as advanced. 

But even if they were,

He would not be Me.

PICARD: 

How can you be sure?

DATA: 

I aspire, sir, to be Better Than I am. 

B-4 Does Not. Nor Does Shinzon.

There is Good and There is Evil. 

I left Gallifrey to answer A Question of my own : By any analysis, Evil should always win. 

Good is not a practical survival strateg — It requires Loyalty, Self-Sacrifice and er, Love. 

So, WHY does Good prevail? 

What keeps The Balance between Good and Evil in this appalling universe? Is there some kind of logic? Some mysterious force? 

BILL: 

….Perhaps there's just A Bloke. 

Old Grandfather : 

A bloke? 

BILL: 

Yeah. Perhaps there's just some bloke, 

wandering around, putting everything right when it goes wrong. 

Old Grandfather : 

Well, that would be a nice story, wouldn't it? 

BILL: 

That would be The Best. 

Old Grandfather : 

But the real world is not a fairy tale. 

BILL: 

You dash around the universe trying to figure out what's holding it all together, and you really, really don't know? 

Old Grandfather : 

You know me in The Future. 

Do I ever understand? 

BILL: 

No. I really don't think you do. 

Everyone who's ever met you does. 

You're amazing, Doctor. 

(hugs him) 

Never forget that. 

Never, ever. 

Old Grandfather : 

Well, that's very kind of you. 

BILL: 

We just needed to understand you, Doctor. 

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

What is the meaning of The Virgin Birth? 

In India, there is This System of The Kundalini, as it’s called, the idea of the centers, psychological centers up the spine. 

And they represent the psychological planes of concern and consciousness and action. 

The first is at the rectum, 

and this is that of alimentation. 

The serpent represents this, you know, a traveling esophagus going along just eating, eating, eating, eating. 

And all of us are — we wouldn’t be here if we weren’t eating. 

And then the second, the second center 

is at the sex organ center, 

and that’s the urge to procreation. 

The third center’s called, is at the navel, and this is where you eat and want to consume. 

And it’s not the alimentary eating, 

it’s the mastering and smashing and trashing of others, do you see? This is the aggressive mood.

Now, the first is an animal instinct, 

the second is an animal instinct, 

the third is an animal instinct, 

and these three centers are located in the pelvic base, do you see. 

The next one is at the level of The Heart, 

and this is the opening of Compassion.

 And there you move out of 

the field of animal action 

into a field that is 

properly human and spiritual. 

Now, in each of these centers there is a symbolic form. 

At the base, the first one, there is the form of the lingam and yeni, the male and female organs in conjunction. 

At The Heart Chakra, there is again The Male and Female organs in conjunction, but in Gold. 

This is The Virgin Birth. 

It’s the birth of spiritual man out of the animal man. 

Do you understand?

BILL MOYERS: 

And it happens?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

When you are awakened at the level of The Heart to Compassion and to 

suffering with the other person. 

That’s the beginning of Humanity. 

And the meditations of religion properly are on that level, the heart level.

BILL MOYERS: 

You say it’s the beginning of Humanity, but in these Stories, that’s the moment when gods are born, 

The Virgin Birth, it’s a god who emerges from that chemistry.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Yeah, and you know who that god is? It’s you. All of these symbols in mythology refer to you. 

You can get stuck out there and think it’s all out there, and so you’re thinking of Jesus and all the sentiments about how he suffered and all; 

what that suffering is, is what ought to be going on in you. 

Have you been reborn? 

Have you died to your animal nature and come to life as a human incarnation?

BILL MOYERS: 

Why is it significant that this is of a virgin?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: 

Well, it is that the begetter is The Spirit. 

It is a spiritual birth. 

The Virgin conceived of The Word, through The Ear.

BILL MOYERS: The Word came like a shaft of light.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes. And now, the Buddha was born from his mother’s side, at the level of the heart chakra. That’s a symbolic birth; he wasn’t born from his mother’s side, but symbolically he was.

BILL MOYERS: But the Christ came the way you and I come.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: Yes, but of a virgin.

BILL MOYERS: Which is a power greater than…

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: And then, according to Roman Catholic doctrine, her virginity was restored. So nothing happened physically, you might say. It’s not a physical birth. It’s symbolic of a spiritual transformation, that’s what the virgin birth is about. And so deities are born that way who represent beings who act in terms of compassion, and not in terms of the lower three centers.