The Ministry for the Future

by Kim Stanley Robinson

Whatever it took. Lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, fuck it—win.

I didn’t understand it, so how could I explain it? Who can tell the riddle of their own true self? So all right, a new person. Old but new. I think about what I have now, as this new person in her life, not quite my life, it seems, but I’m trying to get my head around

So what we have now, I would say, is not money (very short), nor freedom (we are still registered as Ausländer), but dignity. And this is what I think everyone needs. After the basics of food and shelter that we need just as animals, first thing after that: dignity. Everyone needs and deserves this, just as part of being human. And yet this is a very undignified world. And so we struggle. You see how it is. And yes, dignity is something you get from other people, it’s in their eyes, it’s a kind of regard. If you don’t get it, the anger rises in you. This I know very well. That anger can kill you.

Better to have it all go by in a tearing rush. That I am sure of.

The most important thing, therefore, is to learn the language. Not just English, but the local language, the native language. The mother tongue. Their culture doesn’t matter so much, just the language. That I find is the great connector. You speak their language and even when you’re messing it up like crazy, they get a look on their face: in that moment they want to help you. They see you are human, also that their language is a hard one, a strange one. But you’ve taken the trouble.