More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Sometimes, a person reaches a point in their life when it becomes absolutely essential to get the fuck out of the city.
Dex wanted to inhabit a place that spread not up but out.
It looked impossibly easy to fall into and equally difficult to get out of.
Dex realized with a stomach-souring thud that they were standing on the wrong side of the vast gulf between having read about doing a thing and doing the thing.
The homes were like trees themselves in that regard—unmistakably part of a specific visual category, yet each an individual unto itself.
Dex knew that it was their work—their work!—that brought those out. They brought people joy. They made people’s day. That was a tremendous thing, when you sat and thought about it.
The robot crouched, trying to align itself with Dex’s height. “Does this help?”
Oh my god it’s cute dex just relax
“Yes,” Dex said tersely. They weren’t about to get lectured on theology by a machine.
Me trying to be anti ai at church
“I’d say you’re more than just an object,” Dex said. The robot looked a touch offended. “I would never call you just an animal, Sibling Dex.” It turned its gaze to the road, head held high. “We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.”
“So, you see me as more person than object, even though that’s very, very wrong, but you can’t see me as a friend, even though I’d like to be?”
I assure you the forest will forget you were here in no time.
Its only legacy was to persist where it did not belong.
It felt, in that moment, like time had compressed, like history was no longer segmented into Ages and Eras, but here, living, now.
It’s very odd, isn’t it? The thing every being fears most is the only thing that’s for certain?
Such fear was a remnant, as the robot would say. Or maybe, Dex countered, just common fucking sense.
So, how fucking spoiled am I, then? How fucking broken? What is wrong with me that I can have everything I could ever want and have ever asked for and still wake up in the morning feeling like every day is a slog?”
They had come this far. They would see this through.
They provide inspiration, not intervention. If we want change, or good fortune, or solace, we have to create it for ourselves.
You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is.
You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do.”
“Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?”
“Then how,” Dex said, “how does the idea of maybe being meaningless sit well with you?” Mosscap considered. “Because I know that no matter what, I’m wonderful,”
In the wilds outside, the sun set, and crickets began to sing.
