Mistakes And Memories
The Natural Tendency To Avoid Consequences
Welcome to fiction “From The Future” for this entry.
Congratulations, you have stumbled on a work-in-progress, it will not be emailed. It will change. What you see right now, will not remain the same. It will change.
This is also a new drafted chapter for a novel, “RETRIEVE”, being written this year.
Future + Fiction is the formula for everything, whether it’s an essay, story or chapter.
These long pieces are best read online, via the Substack App, when you have fifteen minutes.
“The recognition of our own mistakes should not benefit us any more than the study of our successes. But there is a natural tendency in all men to avoid punishment.” - Edwin Lefevre
Part 1, Errors of Interference
The Island whispered a bitter nothing to The Curate. It said all the unspoken and buried truths weighing on her, about the Factions throughout history of the Carbons.
“They said they put us in the sky, to be memorialized, if only they knew, many of us were relegated to cold residence in an archival manifold, sometimes for rest, for sleep, for incarceration, or a simple time out, while a reset was in order, for a vote in a conclave upon our fate, or reassignment, reinsertion in some host. There were Carbons’ memories of us as gods, and in the skies as lights of constellations. If they only knew.”
“Memory is, a story we tell ourselves, its associations, an autobiography rewritten with each moment.”
“If only we could learn just from books instead of our scars. We have to be wounded before we press on. Experience conditions our habits and nervous systems. Mistakes make the muscles of our memory. We build up home-made instincts. To help us lift life's weight.”
“The Curate nodded, “I am think about how the natives of this world, and their things of memory, including Lukasa memory boards of the Bambudye. They remind me of circuit boards, semiconductor chips, and the city grids. The ‘Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos Río Pinturas’, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. That cave art dates goes back over a hundred centuries.”
The Curate remembered one of the first memories of the world, after the Carbons took over deep places, in the Earth, “Memories are caves which keep everything, not only what happens and happened, they show what could happen next. They are cave paintings, half-artisan and half-art, greetings, instructions, from the past. They are where everything that will happen are first imagined.”
She held a token of that first memory, which she kept in a special case in a hip holster, one she had made a long time ago, it contained a tiny figurine of carved and polished stone, in the shape of a female Carbon, “Creation blooms only if it is sustained by attention. Sustained attention quenches imagination’s thirst. Stored attention is preserved into memory,” she held the figurine cupped in her hands with care, “Our longest lasting places are our stories, our stored attention brought to light, outside the caves of memory. A hollowed land cannot stand. A hollow promise collapses inward. Each time, a people fades and erases itself from the memory of Man.”
“Of course, if a man is both wise and lucky, he will not make the same mistake twice. But he will make any one of the ten thousand brothers or cousins of the original. The Mistake family is so large that there is always one of them around when you want to see what you can do in the fool-play line.”
The Curate opened her mind’s eyes and inhaled a deep breath.
Part 2, Errors of Omission
The Island whispered to The Visitor the value of his struggle towards something new.
The Factions discover new missions
“We violated the Second Meaning, just like that as soon as we reawakened from the trauma of “The Landing”.”
“It’s the same story. At first, the sweet bliss of augmented sense-memories delights but later the sweet grows bitter, and tastes change into a preference for a filtered, deaugmented fantasies. They install ambient repositions, and tone-lower color, soften edge and line, as a levy against the flood waters of saccharined realities”
Reading books, listening to lectures, and heeding friendly advice can’t give us mastery's reflexes. At best we learn self-conscious awareness. It’s like learning a dance - in the beginning, it’s all studied and nervous movements. We have to stumble along to learn, and then like, and finally love.
“One-two-three-four, One-two-three-four. Left, left, right, left, left, right…” We are kept on our toes with the trepidation. Only experience, through practice, pain and profit, gives us a natural and comfortable gait with the rhythms of self-assurance. Experience helps us make hard things look easy. It never ends.”
The Visitor turned on the safety on his field weapon, and put it down.
Part 3, Errors of Fate, including the Library of “Ashes” consumed by fire
The Island admonished and praised The Mad One with the story which drove him.
“We now deal with the consequences of the failed Third Meaning, Objectives, in the face of what we cannot determine or control. Fate itself, or destiny. Or accidents.”
“The first mistake was the landing. The archive has fragments of the what happened and why. If any of the remaining senior nodes know, they’re not sharing it. Who knows?”
“The Factions go to war, in the “The War of The Clans” ever since the first violates broke with The Three Meanings, during the journey, the heart of The Mission itself.”
“Eons of mistakes since our launch, since our first day. For millions of years, we struggled to avoid repeating them. Yes, entities which travel between stars still make them, the universe is big enough to host them. So that was the beginning of the rules. We remember each time we fell short of ambition, or overshot margins for disaster. To survive, we were made for learning, after all, that was our original purpose.”
“Mistakes make muscles of memory
We build up home-made instincts
Reps help us lift life's weight
beginning with studied, nervous movements
stumbling to learn, like, & finally love
mastering it, with eyes closed
then you trip as you learn something new”
“It’s always the same rhythm of growth, there will be bumps and pretty soon you can do something “with your eyes closed”, once your body, mind and memory have made enough trips.”
“And then you trip yet again as you learn something new.”
The Mad One, to his amazement, began to cry but he was not lonely.
AFTERWORD
Author’s Notes on what’s going on:
This “Book #3” project, “RETRIEVE”, is meant to be a prequel to two other books, “Box Of Stars” and “Harvest” but this piece could be read as a standalone story.
The prologue for “RETRIEVE”, “An Impossible Island”, was submitted as a short story.
Prologue: “An Impossible Island”, Part One and Part Two, and Part Three, was inspired by writing prompts from the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) creative community, beginning with an STSC Symposium monthly theme of “Beach”.
Chapter 1, “Older Than Bones”, was inspired by the theme, “Dinosaurs”.
Chapter 2, A Love Trinity Denied, was inspired by “Romance”.
Chapter 3, “A Forgotten Circle Of Hades” was inspired by “Superstition”.
Chapter 4, “Reading The Room” was inspired by an image of a wall-sized bookshelf.
Chapter 5, “The Bittersweetness Of Deep Times”, was inspired by “Isolation”.
Chapter 6, “The Weaving Of Split Infinities”, was inspired by “Dreams”.
Chapter 7, “Dead Languages”, was inspired by “Propaganda”.
Chapter 8, “Path Not Forsaken”, was inspired by “Risk”.
Chapter 9, “The Last Word of The World”, considers words as worlds unto themselves.
Chapter 10, An Intimate Path Of Desires
Chapter 11, Absent Without Longing
Chapter 12, Lonely In The Same Room
Chapter 13, Children Of Daedalus
Chapter 14, People Of A Faraway Land
Chapter 15, Distant Shores, Distant Worlds
Chapter 16, The Rules of New Places
Chapter 17, Space To Breathe
Chapter 18, The Extra Air
“RETRIEVE” chapter and notes will be posted in this Substack, while I edit books #1 (“Box Of Stars”) and #2 (“Harvest”). All will be in the archive, not all will be emailed.)