h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"You are whatever you want to be, Kyaa. If you acknowledge me as your niece it would be bad manners not to call you Uncle wouldn't it? Of course, I would have to know something about your family then wouldn't I? So I'd know what to expect and what was expected of me.

On the otherhand, if you just want to be friends, then it's not so complicated probably. Although I still probably wouldn't understand you very well, but that's probably something I'll have to work through sooner or later."

I wish to let you be Ana; the weary woes of our suffering family called me back, again. I post a new thread because this does not belong where it was ... perhaps.

If one is lucky then I think you are right and one can be whatever one wants to be; unfortunately most of us are not so lucky. Please recall Ana that it was you who prefixed me as you did. You did so without having any answers or asking any questions. I wonder what would change that now?

However, given that you have honored Ned in the same way I always wondered - but did not then care to ask, that is until the prefix was missing - what you were conveying by doing so.

I can ask or expect nothing of you. I know this. Still, if spoken straight and true, I hope I will understand and we will converse. I do tend to speak and explain in analogy and metaphor. It is difficult to grasp if the culture, language and personality are all unknowns.

I think our conversation will always be complex because you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you can't pick your relatives ... and it is such a, gosh dang, *big* family.

Yes it is a big family, Kyaa. Bigger than I can comprehend even.

I'm reluctant to converse because it seems whatever I say, even as a joke, gives offense or is otherwise taken badly a lot of times. I suppose you're not the only one conversing in metaphors and analogies that don't quite make sense. I probably do it too and can't understand why you don't understand.

Please remember something though. You have a very big dream to share. Maybe too big for some of us to deal with directly. I feel more comfortable dealing with it within the protections afforded by my tribe, as meager as those might be. They're all I have really in this big world. They're all, in my exprience so far, and in the experience of many of my ancestors, that I can trust.

So I hope maybe you will try to be little more patient and I will try too. We change and adapt because we can and because often we must, but everything needs sufficient time or it just doesn't work very well.

Ana, I want to quote what you have written very recently back to yourself. I want to hold this post up to your pretty face so that you will see yourself and maybe ... I can only hope this you will see me. It is my hope that we have interacted more than either of us may care to admit. It is something important for me and so I'll share it with you, you've changed - I know I am different moment by moment - and if in some very small measure it is from our talks it makes me happy.

"I have a big dream, several actually.

I dream that someday most people will recognize that what they need is more important than what they want so that then everyone will get what they need.

I dream that people will understand this like grownups and not keep whining about and pushing for what they want even if it deprives others of what they need.

I dream that we can share this planet peacefully and relatively prosperously if we all learn to share, play fair, take turns and tell the truth.

Those last words came from my recently deceased cousin. I think she was a very wise woman, don't you? [this is why I know I am here at all instead of elsewhere... it is also why you are, I believe]"

"One of the founding fathers of the United States complained to James Madison that indians were wild because they shared their women, their wives and daughters with white men. He thought that was a very reprehensible thing to do, very immoral. It's a pity really that he and others like him misinterpreted the gesture.

These things were done so the white men would be relatives not strangers and, therefore, not enemies. But even the "indian lovers" misinterpreted things a lot. They saw their indian wives as a meal ticket, as title to land they appropriated for themselves and for the "good side" of the family, the white side.

I think it's a good thing that you're trying to connect with the people who stood on the land before your people came. If you're ever going to put down roots finally, you need know how much we have loved and continue to love this land, how much she owns us, and maybe share that love and be owned too. At least I can dream that can't I? [she is a whole not just a composite of parts, I think]

And if we can love our common mother, maybe we can really live like true cousins someday and not like how your cousin lived with you."

Thanks for holding up the mirror. I think you should do that for yourself as well. You're right. We have both changed and are changing.

Our mother is called Changing Woman too. She has born many children, and not all alike. That's a good thing.

We will have our disputes as siblings do. And when honor is served we will return to our fields and hunting grounds and gather the seeds that sustain us, but that only works if there are fields and hunting grounds and seeds. It doesn't work very well when a few seize the mother and use her like a whore. That's when the dreams turn bad.

Did you really know Shane? Did you know those monsters almost killed her when she a little younger than me? Did you know they thought they had or they would have succeeded then and there? That's how bad it was for her. But she survived it, barely, but finally the wounds that wouldn't heal killed her. Finally, the monsters killed her but it took them maybe 10 years to kill her because she had a lot of power.

Unfortunately she was not an isolated case. Some people see beauty in the world but they can't live with it. So they must kill it. I don't know why that is. Maybe you do?

But for now, I don't want to talk about it for awhile. Maybe tomorrow. It just makes me cry and feel hatred for people I don't even know.

Do you feel okay about conversing about SLM here, in so public a place?

She argued with me with a passion; she observed me unobserved, she shared ideas and facts with me; she wrote beautiful poetry to me. To be absolutely honest, physically, SLM is no more than a collection of electrons for me that conjured an idea - one that is as much the child of my own thinking as that of what she may have intended.

Those electrons were, most importantly, arranged just so and will never again be quite that way again. They are scattered yet I know they are all there. Perhaps, I intuit, some whisper by, unexpected. Perhaps some are now part of others and even sustain them, perhaps not ... "a trace of the traceless."

You've told me much about yourself, directly or by what I attempt to deduce from how you speak where you go to those whom your choose to address. Still, there is very much I don't know. I am curious; I have respect for your privacy. About me ... I think, you've got a bit of a profile, right? Profiles can be iffy things.

I don't know why people feel the need to erase beauty. I don't know why people decide to act in foul ways. I don't know why people feel the need to dominate other people, to look down at other people, to do unjust, uncompassionate, merciless acts. She did tell me the medical manifestations of her injuries and how these came to be. I cannot find adequate words to say what I felt ... forgive me.

Cry then, if you feel it is right, let me help wipe your tears, if you feel it is right. It is easy to hate, to wish to and even to actually exact vengeance, to hunt, to kill, to despise, to ignore, to lose it; so much harder to open eyes, to open ears, to offer a soothing touch, a gracious smile, a scented sirocco of good hope, a taste of honey, to soften a heart....

By the time I do the homework I'm supposed to do instead of wasting time online and by the time I answer all the issues posed in the discussions here and research those things, and by the time I tell a story or two, now and then, I hardly have any resources left to deal with what you say to me. It's just overwhelming.

So, please don't think I'm blowing you off. I just need time to deal with it and the mental resources I don't got. Can you appreciate that, Ky?

It would be understandable if you didn't appreciate it. You might wonder why you end up at the end of the line, but that's because I put you off, you pose the difficult questions on the examination that I need to put off so I'm not caught at the end with all the easy questions unanswered.

So if you please, help me a little more by telling me a little more about how you came to be as you are and know what you know, okay? Because I think you really know a good deal more about me in that regard than I know about you.

And besides it will give me more time to think about what to say in response. It's probably a very old ploy, I know, of trying to extend the examination period by questioning the questions but try to humor me anyways. Otherwise, I think I'll just have to go somewhere and have a quiet little breakdown.

What do you study? What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help?

I promise to ponder the rest.

It's just that the other stuff seems a lot more important.

Don't go out and get plastered and don't procrastinate ... p l e a s e !

I'm studying history right now in case you couldn't guess.

I'm developing a thesis about American imperialism. Part of that depends on analyzing America's wars naturally. I think most of them weren't defensive after all. Maybe two were defensive, the Revolution and WWII, but I'm beginning to have my doubts about those too.

A Civil War historian named Shelby Foote said that Americans were fundamentally peaceful people. It took a lot of persuading to get them to go to war. I don't see it that way for some reason. As long as they love winners and abhore losers, I don't see how it can be as he says.

What do you think?

Check on this site, briefly: http://www.krysstal.com/democracy.html

I'm trying to remember an excellent anti-Imperialism site I ran across some years past; if I find it again, I will let you know it.

Don't go to the frat boys; you're like a deer caught in the headlights of an onrushing tractor-trailer; be a fox and spring out of the way.

Your life is not so worthless that you need live it dangerously. But, then, I'm not sure you know what real danger is having lived so close to your tribe small as it is. That is _not an insult, it is an observation - of you. Nor do you need an audiance, any audiance; I know you love yourself better than that. It's rotgut and cancer sticks talking. You're sure you must have them?

Why are you so lonely? Yes, part of it is because you're smart, but, what else? Tell...

As for the Civil War, there is personal narrative involved ... within the family ... I have to think more.

Yes, I'm lonely.

You probably don't notice but the white world is very cold and full of strangers. The booze gives me warmth and friends sort of if only for a little while. I know it's probably stupid. But then a lot of things of stupid, right?

I don't think I belong here, but a lot of people are counting on me to work hard and help. And to tell the truth, it's exciting sometimes in a twisted sort of way. And I'm just plain curious about the whole sordid thing.

Well, I've joked about tire tracks on the belly before. Here or there, what difference does it make? They're going to kill us all anyways sooner or later. Why runaway? It's a good day to die don't you think?

Ana, you are not alone. I know you will have a very hard time accepting that, especially from me. It is a pure offer.

I notice what I must and I miss some that is right here.

The flesh and blood Analiese I know is a lovely child, smart, kind of heart, with a lot to offer the world. Her parents recently went separate ways; I’ve seen her grow since she was a very little child. She seems a little lost these days and I wonder what I could do quietly that might nudge her into light.

We'll never be a part of the white world; the world is not a white world, never was, never will be. She is just the world, which is all. But you and I will continue to look, listen, and probe. I don't wish to hurt though I am hurt.

The booze only lowers your sensitivity; it lowers your temperature; it lowers your resistance; it lowers your mind; it lowers you. What connects you to what is more than you is closer to you than your jugular vein; take care of yourself therefore, so that you don't lose that which is already within you, that is without value.

Must you offer yourself up to those you detest the most? Deep inside you there is not such base self loathing ... is there? ...; if there is it does not belong. You are better.

Surely we will each and every one of us die. When we die will we remain forever lonely, forever disconnected, forever disjointed, forever seeking or will our deeds unite us ... infinitely small, infinitely vast?

Another website for you:

http://www.neravt.com/left/invade.htm

I still can't find where I put the site I originally thought of, still searching...

Thanks, that one's got some awesome stuff.

And just in case you didn't read my post on the other thread, I didn't go out tonight. Thanks for your concern.

Time for a different dance. You're always welcome, daughter of Wing and I thank you for accepting the advice. Be sure to tell if you find out anything, okay? Be well.

I found out one of my admirers, if he speaks truly, doesn't like me going out with other admirers. Do you suppose he's claiming something? What should I do? Become a colony?

I think I should think about it more.

Since you ask:

Yes. You know the Answer. No.

are you all done here, then, thinking and all?

No, I'm just thinking in other places sometimes. I think you started this thread didn't you? Are you done?

Assuredly not! But, you've promised so much (see above) and now you seem to refuse to honor those words?

Do you agree with calling the U of D the Harvard of the West? It was a revelation to me!

Thanks for allowing me - and others, I guess - to continue to piece together a picture of the life and circumstances of Shayna ... and you.

Forgive me, Ky, but as you can probably see with the New Zealanders, you never know when hostilities might break out. People have different agendas and they're not always the ones they first present.

That's been a problem between you and me in the past I think. I've never quite been sure what your agenda was, why you wanted to know things about me when you wouldn't share much about yourself. So I've been on my guard and still am a little probably.

Give it time. Unless you've got some mission to accomplish I don't know about.