Belated Blog Action Day Post
There are thousands of posts out there that start by saying "Today is Blog Action Day" or "World Food Day". And there are a few that say "Sunday was Blog Action Day or World Food Day." I'm in that second group. A little late, but still there, right? (I've never been famous for my promptness.)
I don't have any profound, save-the-world kind of commentary, but I do have some thoughts on the subject of food and world-wide implications. At least fictional ones. When I began making plans in my novel ExtraNormal for my main character Mira to travel from the planet of Nreim to Earth, I realized that food had to be one of her major transitions. And as I pondered the possible implications of a different food system on not just Mira but on Nreim, the possibilities became endless.
Food has the power to be its own Marvel Comic-worthy multi-faceted and multi-faced super hero and villain all wrapped up into one. In excess we turn into near-combustible rolly pollies. But with deprivation, the unthinkable and unacceptable happens.
Food keeps most of us occupied throughout every hour of every day of our lives, as we each attempt to strike the perfect balance between intake and deprivation in order to adequately provide for our physical, emotional, and social well-beings. When we strike the wrong balance, and most of us do at one time or another, the results can be disastrous. When a nation fails to provide the correct balance, entire races of people can suffer.
And it is with this dilemma that the first hint of Nreim's dystopic society are introduced in ExtraNormal. I think I'll post a bit of a scene from when Mira gets her first taste of earth food, since it shows both Mira's and Nreim's dilemmas better than I can tell them. (Warning: this excerpt has not yet been through my brilliant editor's hands).
"I'd ignored the cheeseburger as long as I could. I picked itup again, and did possibly the most rebellious thing of my entire seventeen yearsof life.
I took a bite.
And moaned with pleasure. I rolled the juicy meat around inmy mouth, reveling in the unfamiliar texture on my tongue. I swallowed. Thenimmediately filled my mouth again, tears forming in my eyes. I savored thejuice that splashed against the inside of my cheek, the smooth texture of themelted cheese.
Then I looked up. Three sets of eyes watched me. I grinned,realized how disgusting I must look, and clamped my mouth shut.
Until my arrival on this planet yesterday, my nutrition hadcome in the form of a cube, ingested five times daily. The development of the cubeas a nutrition source was hailed as the single most important advancement ofall mankind. It would normally take dozens of generations to implement such adrastic change, but somehow the brilliant geneticists on Nreim had done it inonly four. The cube had wiped out many major illnesses and freed a multitude ofvaluable economic resources. Not to mention all the good it supposedly did forthe goal of purified genetics. At least that's what they taught us in school.
I shoved three fries in my mouth and decided that the cubewas, in reality, a wide-scale tragedy of untold proportions."
The novel, or this excerpt, are not intended as political commentary. Just a few moments of fun escapism. But if there is a commentary to be made, perhaps it is simply to be careful what you wish for. Solving one problem can create ten others. I don't offer up solutions to the problem of world hunger, though I wish I could. The best I can do is to not suggest the cube.
I don't have any profound, save-the-world kind of commentary, but I do have some thoughts on the subject of food and world-wide implications. At least fictional ones. When I began making plans in my novel ExtraNormal for my main character Mira to travel from the planet of Nreim to Earth, I realized that food had to be one of her major transitions. And as I pondered the possible implications of a different food system on not just Mira but on Nreim, the possibilities became endless.
Food has the power to be its own Marvel Comic-worthy multi-faceted and multi-faced super hero and villain all wrapped up into one. In excess we turn into near-combustible rolly pollies. But with deprivation, the unthinkable and unacceptable happens.
Food keeps most of us occupied throughout every hour of every day of our lives, as we each attempt to strike the perfect balance between intake and deprivation in order to adequately provide for our physical, emotional, and social well-beings. When we strike the wrong balance, and most of us do at one time or another, the results can be disastrous. When a nation fails to provide the correct balance, entire races of people can suffer.
And it is with this dilemma that the first hint of Nreim's dystopic society are introduced in ExtraNormal. I think I'll post a bit of a scene from when Mira gets her first taste of earth food, since it shows both Mira's and Nreim's dilemmas better than I can tell them. (Warning: this excerpt has not yet been through my brilliant editor's hands).
"I'd ignored the cheeseburger as long as I could. I picked itup again, and did possibly the most rebellious thing of my entire seventeen yearsof life.
I took a bite.
And moaned with pleasure. I rolled the juicy meat around inmy mouth, reveling in the unfamiliar texture on my tongue. I swallowed. Thenimmediately filled my mouth again, tears forming in my eyes. I savored thejuice that splashed against the inside of my cheek, the smooth texture of themelted cheese.
Then I looked up. Three sets of eyes watched me. I grinned,realized how disgusting I must look, and clamped my mouth shut.
Until my arrival on this planet yesterday, my nutrition hadcome in the form of a cube, ingested five times daily. The development of the cubeas a nutrition source was hailed as the single most important advancement ofall mankind. It would normally take dozens of generations to implement such adrastic change, but somehow the brilliant geneticists on Nreim had done it inonly four. The cube had wiped out many major illnesses and freed a multitude ofvaluable economic resources. Not to mention all the good it supposedly did forthe goal of purified genetics. At least that's what they taught us in school.
I shoved three fries in my mouth and decided that the cubewas, in reality, a wide-scale tragedy of untold proportions."
The novel, or this excerpt, are not intended as political commentary. Just a few moments of fun escapism. But if there is a commentary to be made, perhaps it is simply to be careful what you wish for. Solving one problem can create ten others. I don't offer up solutions to the problem of world hunger, though I wish I could. The best I can do is to not suggest the cube.
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