Parable of the Talents

by Octavia E. Butler

Not with purpose, But with potential.

Why not both?

“God is Change,” my mother believed.

So that's where you get it from

The words are harmless,

Not harmless if they are false

We give our dead To the orchards And the groves. We give our dead To life.

This much is true

Darkness Gives shape to the light As light Shapes the darkness. Death Gives shape to life As life Shapes death.

Yes

The universe And God Share this wholeness, Each Defining the other. God Gives shape to the universe As the universe Shapes God.

No

Amid all this, somehow, the United States of America suffered a major nonmilitary defeat. It lost no important war, yet it did not survive the Pox. Perhaps it simply lost sight of what it once intended to be, then blundered aimlessly until it exhausted itself.

Hyperempathy syndrome is a delusional disorder, after all. There’s no telepathy, no magic, no deep spiritual awareness. There’s just the neurochemically-induced delusion that I feel the pain and pleasure that I see others experiencing. Pleasure is rare, pain is plentiful, and, delusional or not, it hurts like hell. So why do I miss it now? What a crazy thing to miss. Not feeling it should be like having a toothache vanish away. I should be surprised and happy. Instead, I’m afraid. A part of me is gone. Not being able to feel my brothers’ pain is like not being able to hear them when they shout, and I’m afraid.

As I was born, she died. Before that, for two years, she took the popular “smart drug” of her time. It was a new prescription medicine called Paracetco, and it was doing wonders for people who had Alzheimer’s disease. It stopped the deterioration of their intellectual function and enabled them to make excellent use of whatever memory and thinking ability they had left. It also boosted the performance of ordinary, healthy young people. They read faster, retained more, made more rapid, accurate connections, calculations, and conclusions. As a result, Paracetco became as popular as coffee among students, and, if they meant to compete in any of the highly paid professions, it was as necessary as a knowledge of computers. My mother’s drug taking may have helped to kill her. I don’t know for sure. My father didn’t know either. But I do know that her drug left its unmistakable mark on me—my hyperempathy syndrome. Thanks to the addictive nature of Paracetco—a few thousand people died trying to break the habit—there were once tens of millions of us.

twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, quoting the words of Christ: “‘For the kingdom of Heaven is as a man traveling into a far country who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto One he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.’”

Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same and made them another five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained another two. But he that had received one went out and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.’”

“Those are our talents,”

“God has given them to us, and he’ll judge us according to how we use them.” The parable continues. To each of the two servants who had traded well and made profit for their lord, the lord said, “‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.’” But to the servant who had done nothing with his silver talent except bury it in the ground to keep it safe, the lord said harsher words. “‘Thou wicked and slothful servant…’” he began. And he ordered his men to, “‘Take therefore the talent from him and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have in abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.’”

Jarret supporters have been known, now and then, to form mobs and burn people at the stake for being witches. Witches! In 2032! A witch, in their view, tends to be a Moslem, a Jew, a Hindu, a Buddhist, or, in some parts of the country, a Mormon, a Jehovah’s Witness, or even a Catholic. A witch may also be an atheist, a “cultist,” or a well-to-do eccentric. Well-to-do eccentrics often have no protectors or much that’s worth stealing. And “cultist” is a great catchall term for anyone who fits into no other large category, and yet doesn’t quite match Jarret’s version of Christianity. Jarret’s people have been known to beat or drive out Unitarians, for goodness’ sake. Jarret condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want to hear. As for the beatings, the tarring and feathering, and the destruction of “heathen houses of devil-worship,” he has a simple answer: “Join us! Our doors are open to every nationality, every race! Leave your sinful past behind, and become one of us. Help us to make America great again.”

Chaos Is God’s most dangerous face—

God created lifd out of the chaos. Why assume God is chaos?

Jarret’s supporters are more than a little seduced by Jarret’s talk of making America great again. He seems to be unhappy with certain other countries. We could wind up in a war. Nothing like a war to rally people around flag, country, and great leader.

We’ve survived as well as we have because we keep learning.

Olamina believes in a god that does not in the least love her. In fact, her god is a process or a combination of processes, not an entity. It is not consciously aware of her—or of anything.

How is this God?

‘The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.’”

We all need dreams—our fantasies—to sustain us through hard times.

In Earthseed, there is no promised afterlife. Earthseed’s heaven is literal, physical—other worlds circling other stars. It promises its people immortality only through their children, their work, and their memories. For the human species, immortality is something to be won by sowing Earthseed on other worlds.

“Oya” is the name of a Nigerian Orisha—goddess—of the Yoruba people. In fact, the original Oya was the goddess of the Niger River, a dynamic, dangerous entity. She was also goddess of the wind, fire, and death, more bringers of great change.

last year, Alaska, weary of regulations and restrictions from far away Washington, D.C., and even more weary of the hoard of hopeful paupers flooding in, declared itself an independent country. It seceded from the United States. First time since the Civil War that a state’s done that. I thought there might be another civil war over the matter, the way President Donner and Alaskan Governor—or rather, Alaskan President—Leontyev are snarling at one another. But Donner has more than enough down here to keep him busy, and neither Canada nor Russia, who have been sending us food and money, much liked the idea of a war right next door to them. The only real danger of civil war is from Andrew Steele Jarret if he wins the election next month.

“Death Is a great Change— Is life’s greatest Change.

Does God die?

I don’t know how to do it. That scares me to death sometimes—always feeling driven to do something I don’t know how to do. But I’m learning as I go along.

we do believe.” “That God is Change?” “Yes.” “I don’t even know what that means.” “It means that Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God.”

How? And why?

“But… what can you do with a God like that? I mean… it isn’t even a person. It doesn’t love you or protect you. It doesn’t know anything. What’s the point?”

Thank you!

“The point is, it’s the truth,” I said. “It’s a hard truth. Too hard for some people to take, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

No nut the case for it doed not hold up. Pure speculation with no basis besides your mother's imagination. If you want to honor your mother that's great but that's all thid seems to be.

Neither needs nor wants Your worship.

Then look at it as love. Why would God not want his creation to love Him?

Beware: At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease.

Back in this country, in Dallas, Texas, some fool of a rich boy went adventuring among the free poor of a big squatter settlement. He wound up wearing the latest in electronic convict control devices—also known as slave collars, dog collars, and choke chains. And with the collar to encourage him, he learned to make himself useful to a local pimp. I’ve heard that the new collars are damned sophisticated. The old ones—worn more often as belts—could only cause pain. They delivered shocks and sometimes damaged or killed people. The new collars don’t kill, and they can be worn for months or years at a time and used often to deliver punishment. They’re programmed to resist being removed or destroyed by delivering jolts of pain severe enough to cause unconsciousness. I’ve heard that some collars can also give cheap, delicious rewards of pleasure for good behavior by encouraging changes in brain chemistry—stimulating the wearer to produce endorphins. I don’t know whether that’s true, but if it is, the whole business sounds a little like being a sharer—except that instead of sharing what other people feel, the wearer feels whatever the person holding the control unit wants him to feel. This could initiate a whole new level of slavery. After a while, needing the pleasure, fearing the pain, and always being desperate to please the master could become a person’s whole life. I’ve heard that some collared people kill themselves, not because they can’t stand the pain, but because they ca...

President Donner has sold the last of our Mars installations to a Euro-Japanese company, in fulfillment of one of his earliest campaign promises. The idea is that all nonmilitary space travel, manned and unmanned, should be privatized. “If it’s worth doing at all,” Donner said, “it should be done for profit, and not as a burden on the taxpayers.” As though profit could be counted only as immediate financial gain. I was born in 2009, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard people complaining about the space program as a waste of money, and even as one of the reasons for the country’s deterioration. Ridiculous! There is so much to be learned from space itself and from the nearby worlds! And now we’ve found living extraterrestrials, and we’re going to quit. I suppose that if the Martian “slime molds” can be used for something—mining, perhaps, or chemistry—then they’ll be protected, cultivated, bred to be even more useful. But if they prove to be of no particular use, they’ll be left to survive or not as best they can with whatever impediments the company sees fit to put in their paths. If they’re unlucky enough to be bad for business in some way—say they develop a taste for some of the company’s building materials—they’ll be lucky to survive at all. I doubt that Terrestrial environmental laws will protect them. Those laws don’t even really protect plant and animal species here on Earth. And who would enforce such laws on Mars? And yet, somehow, I’m glad our installation...

Why would you make up a new religion?” “I didn’t make it up. It was something I had been thinking about since I was 12.

Still made up even if thought about for years

“But you made Earthseed up. Or if you didn’t make it up, you read it or heard about it somewhere.”

Yep

“Thanks to Bankole, just about everyone here calls me Olamina, so maybe it’s just as well. Less confusing.” “Your husband calls you by your maiden name?” “He doesn’t like my first name, so he ignores it. That’s fair. I didn’t like his first name either. It’s ‘Taylor,’ by the way, and I ignore it.”

Red flag

Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm. Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life. Any entity, any process that cannot or should not be resisted or avoided must somehow be partnered. Partner one another. Partner diverse communities. Partner life. Partner any world that is your home. Partner God. Only in partnership can we thrive, grow, Change. Only in partnership can we live.

This is good but does not require God being change

Purpose Unifies us: It focuses our dreams, Guides our plans, Strengthens our efforts. Purpose Defines us, Shapes us, And offers us Greatness.

“Am I wrong?”

There seems to be no good reason to think otherwise

Jorge began repeating his question before Zahra had finished. “Why do you think your God doesn’t change? How can you prove it?” “I have faith that it’s true,” Marc said. “Belief must be based on faith as much as on proofs.” “But there must be some test,” Jorge said. “You must have a way to know when your faith is sensible and when it makes no sense.”

Exactly

Antonio Cortez, Lucio’s oldest nephew, jumped in. “Look,” he said, “in the Bible, God does things. Things happen and he reacts. He makes things. He gets angry. He destroys things…” “But he, himself, doesn’t change,”

Exactly

“Oh, come on,” Tori Mora shouted in open disgust. “To take action is to change. It’s to go from action to inaction. And he goes from calmness to anger—he gets angry a lot.

Having feelings does not change who or what someone is. One can be happy or sad but an emotion is not who we are ans does not define our being

“And in Genesis,” her stepsister Doe said, “he lets some of his favorite men have children with their sisters or daughters. Then in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, he says anyone who does that should be killed.”

Again has no bearing on the essence of God. God can cause change to occur but that does not indicate anything different in the essence of God. Even if God does change in some ways, there is no reason to think we have any power in causing that.

“The Earthseed Destiny,” he said yesterday, “is an airy nothing.

This is the time for us to work for our salvation, not to divert our attention to fantasy explorations of extrasolar worlds.”

Both can be aspired to.

“If you’re looking for immortality in outer space,” he said, “you’ve been misled. You already have an immortal soul, and where that soul spends eternity is up to you. Remember the Tower of Babel! You can follow Earthseed, build your way to go to the stars, fall down into chaos, and wind up in hell! Or you can follow the will of God. And if you follow God’s will, you can live forever, secure and happy, in God’s true heaven.”

Yes

We can, Each of us, Do the impossible As Long as we can convince ourselves That it has been done before.

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

Beware: Ignorance Protects itself. Ignorance Promotes suspicion. Suspicion Engenders fear. Fear quails, Irrational and blind, Or fear looms, Defiant and closed. Blind, closed, Suspicious, afraid, Ignorance Protects itself, And protected, Ignorance grows.

I grew up hearing about that daughter endlessly. Her name was Kamaria, and she was perfect. I know this because my mother told me about her at least once during every day of my childhood. I could never look as good as Kamaria did or straighten my room as well or do as well with my studies or even clean a toilet as well—although I find it difficult to believe the perfect little bitch ever cleaned a toilet—or used one. I didn’t know I was still bitter enough to write a thing like that. I shouldn’t be. It’s foolish to hate someone you’ve never met, someone who’s never harmed you. I believe now that I shifted my resentment safely onto Kamaria, who wasn’t there, so that at least until my adolescence, I could love Kayce Alexander. She was, after all, the only mother I knew.

The problem with Earthseed has always been that it isn’t a very comforting belief system.

Not the only problem with it