Jonas David's Blog, page 46

Alternate Worlds: in which everyone has to live through every second twice

Two seconds forward, one second back. You move the slice of pizza toward  your mouth, and right before you bite it moves back a bit and you’ve got to do it again. You bite, chew, start to swallow, then have to swallow again.

Would your brain adjust to this kind of existence, or would every action take great focus? Speaking certainly would. Language would probably evolve to a short staccato so you could be sure not to be cut off mid word by the time jump. But, since no one forgets anything, you wouldn’t have to repeat yourself during the repeated second. Unless you were making a recording..

In this world, recording music, or playing it, would be almost impossible. But games would be very interesting, since you could act on what you saw happen the first time through that second… but so could your opponent. Playing games against a computer, though, would give humans an advantage, since the computer could only do the same thing over and over. Unless.. it was a conscious computer…

Flying far away

I’m getting on a plane to Singapore this evening, to fly across the sea to see my lady’s family. And have some fun exploring too!

It will be the third time I’ve done so, and I think I’m getting pretty good at traveling. Bringing less, and having less stress each time.

I hope to keep up writing during the trip, but that is always easier said than done, so I’ve front-loaded a crap-load of posts about alternate worlds.

Perhaps a pic or two will make it in as well…

Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem

The end of this novel went in a different direction than I expected. I was drawn into it right away and was excited by the story and the ideas and the potential, but it feels like in the end it left much unexplored.

There was a lot of attention focused on the technical details, research, and visual details of the alien ocean. This did lend a lot to the realism of the world, but I think I would have preferred more about the effects on the characters. We never did get to find out who or what the other character’s ‘guests’ were.

I also wondered about the first version of Harey that was sent up in the rocket… what ever happened to her?

Over all an amazing book that left me wanting more, and one that I’m sure I’ll think about for some time.

Alternate worlds: in which I am a robot who forgot he is a robot

All memories of eating, bleeding, or other non robotic bodily functions have been inserted throughout the day by the memory chip in my positronic brain. Many times throughout the day, I shut down momentarily, freeze in place, and a recollection of drinking coffee or using the toilet is inscribed on my mind. Why? because, we are all robots, and it is a vast experiment to see how human-like machines would be if they thought they were human. Up in the clouds behind a camouflage shield, our constructors sit on a station observing, taking notes, and every so often pulling one of us up into the sky for observation.

Every so often, there is a glitch, and the memory chip fails, and one of the robots tries to eat or drink after having no memory of doing so for a long time, and finds out what they truly are. These units go wild for a time, attacking others, trying to ‘wake them up’ before they are inconspicuously decommissioned.

Alternate worlds: in which I can write 60 wpm

Not type, but write. Amazing prose, polished, complete, top quality words. In this word, I would write a novel per week… and that would three 8 hour days of solid typing.

Every idea I had would be a story, every whim a plot. The books would pile so high that I’d have nothing to do with them. The market would be flooded, I’d have to give them away for free.

It sure would feel good, though, to get every idea I think deserved it onto paper for anyone to read.

Writing: the one thing I’m good at

I was born to do this, and I’m never going to stop.

I just watched a movie, called the Surrounding Game. It is a documentary about Go–one of my other hobbies. And it made me realize that I am a writer.

I have to write, in the same way those players have to play go. I read books every day, in the way they study games every day. It is the focus of any spare energy I have. It is my one driving focus and most honed skill.

That movie, ironically, made me want to quit go and focus all that freed up energy on writing.

It’s what I’m meant to do.

Alternate worlds: in which food is no fun

In this world, food is not enjoyed, or even thought about. A perfectly balanced combination of nutrients is devised personally for each individual based on their body chemistry, and taken as one might take a vitamin. No one prepares food, or eats together, or eats anything at all other than this daily requirement.

In this world, people would be much healthier, but would they enjoy life as much? Maybe they would find enjoyment in other things. Perhaps, instead of breathing air by rote they would get flavored or scented air, and breath from special bags with different brands, and styles.

Would such a world charge for air instead of food–both necessities for life?

Your darkest secret

I’ve been listening to Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem, and it is so far amazing.

Imagine your darkest, most embarrassing, strangest thought. The thing you are most ashamed or guilty for thinking–maybe it just popped into your head, unplanned, as thoughts often do. Now imagine that thought made flesh, and following you around for all to see.

The 2002 movie version of this book is a watered down love story, that hardly scratches the surface of the weirdness in this book… and I’m only at the beginning. The 1972 version is supposed to be much better, but I haven’t seen it. I’ll probably watch it after I finish.

I definitely have missed the psychological side of sci fi, and am enjoying this a lot.

 

Alternate worlds: in which love is mandatory

Jimmy wakes up on the morning of his 18th birthday and drives to the clinic for his mandatory injection of love serum. This is a special medicine that makes him fall in love with the next person he sees. This is required of all adult citizens, once per year.

It is very unlikely that the person he sees will also have just been injected, and will also fall in love with him. So the world is full of unrequited love–but it is full of love. And everyone understands each other’s pain and sympathize with those in love with them, because they feel it themselves–helplessly, uncontrollably, mandatorily–for someone else.

This world is a bit kinder to each other, a bit more understanding and sympathetic toward each other, a bit more loving for each other. Because everyone, by default, knows what a heartbreak is.

Alternate worlds: in which I didn’t burn my bacon

Incoming, a series of posts about alternate realities that we almost lived in. Or maybe some we never had a chance to live in…

In this alternate world, I didn’t leave the bacon in the oven for nearly an hour and come out with black strips of salty carbon. In this world, I remembered and got up and ate juicy bacon with just the right combo of crispy and chewy.

But then, because of that I didn’t hear the song I’m listening to now, and wasn’t inspired with an idea about alternate universes, and never wrote any of these upcoming posts…