To Be Taught, If Fortunate

by Becky Chambers

It’s difficult to assign value to discovery when you haven’t sorted out the parameters of reality yet.

I’m an observer, not a conqueror. I have no interest in changing other worlds to suit me. I choose the lighter touch: changing myself to suit them.

When the world you know is out of reach, nothing is more welcome than a measurable reminder that it still exists.

It’s understandable why humans stopped living in space in the 2020s. How can you think of the stars when the seas are spilling over? How can you spare thought for alien ecosystems when your cities are too hot to inhabit? How can you trade fuel and metal and ideas when the lines on every map are in flux? How can anyone be expected to care about the questions of worlds above when the questions of the world you’re stuck on – those most vital criteria of home and health and safety – remain unanswered?

A forest is an interdependent community. Resources are shared, and life in isolation is a death sentence.

The amount a person can spare is relative; the value of generosity is not.

Viewed in this way, you can never again see a tree as a single entity, despite its visual dominance. It towers. It’s impressive. But in the end, it’s a fragile endeavour that can only stand thanks to the contributions of many. We celebrate the tree that stretches to the sky, but it is the ground we should ultimately thank.

At some point, you have to accept the fact that any movement creates waves, and the only other option is to lie still and learn nothing.

The ache to return to a time long gone was almost worse than fear.

A moth was a caterpillar, once, but it no longer is a caterpillar. It cannot break itself back down, cannot metamorphose in reverse. To try to eat leaves again would mean starvation. Crawling back into the husk would provide no shelter. It is a paradox – the impossibility of reclaiming that which lies behind, housed within a form comprised entirely of the repurposed pieces of that same past. We exist where we begin, yet to remain there is death.

a home can only exist in a moment. Something both found and made. Always temporary, in the grand scheme of things, but vital all the same.

We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship – to teach, if we are called upon; to be taught, if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of this immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step.