Sara J. (kefuwa) > Recent Status Updates

When we try to conceal our innermost drives, the entire being screams betrayal.

melange (me'-lange also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis with geriatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Ashkoko, royal chemist in reign of Shakkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib, first Fremen Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild & the BG.

What God means you to do, Mile's theist mother claimed, could be deduced from the talents He gave you. The academic honors, Miles had amassed by sheer brute work. But the war games, outwitting his opponents, staying one step ahead --- the war games had been an unholy joy. War had been no game here once, not so long ago. It might be so again. What you did best, that was what God wanted from you.

Ordinary people need extraordinary examples. So they can say to themselves, well, if he can do that, I can surely do this."

Done with "Warrior's Apprentice" - woohoo! That was some wild ride!

Tests are a gift, she says, and great tests are a great gift.

"... a person I knew once said that meaning is what you bring to things, not what you take from them."

But reason seemed to run backwards, conclusions swallowed in premises, and premises in silence, until in the end only silence and the unanswerable object remained.

"You don't look scared... You just look pissed." "That's because I've got forward momentum. There's no virtue in it. It's just a balancing act. I don't dare stop."

- those old mechanical metaphors that have nothing to do with how information travels. See, reach isn't describable in terms of cause and effect any more: its simultaneous. It's faster than the speed of light that's actually been measured. So now we study particle physics." "What next? String theory?" "That's an elective."

"Physics is required. Three semesters. If you fail, you're out of the program." "For a marketing degree?" Alex was dumbfounded. "It used to be epidemiology," Lulu said. "You know, when the viral model was still current." "Don't people still say 'viral'?" -- "No one says 'viral' anymore, I mean, maybe thoughtlessly, the way we still say 'connect' or 'transmit' -

But where? Ted deliberated this question while drowning three espressos in the hotel lobby, letting the caffeine and vodka greet in his brain like fighting fish.

"I picture it like Judgement Day," he says finally his eyes on the water. "We'll rise up out of our bodies and find each other again in spirit form. We'll meet in that new place, all of us together, and first it'll seem strange, and pretty soon it'll seem strange that you could ever lose someone, or get lost."

"Oh we'll know each other forever," Bix says. "The days of losing touch are almost gone" "What does that mean?" Drew asks. "We're going to meet again in a different place," Bix says. "Everyone we've lost, we'll find. Or they'll find us." "Where? How?" Drew asks. Bix hesitates, like he's held this secret so long he's afraid of what will happen when he releases it into the air.

You've entered a state of tingling, stomachy happiness that feels the way you hoped adulthood would be as a kid: a blur of lost bearings, release from the drone of meals and homework and church and 'That's not a nice way to talk to your sister, Robert Jr.

In high school you'd get in fights when you felt like this, but no one will fight with you now - the fact that you hacked your wrists with a box cutter three months ago and nearly bled to death seems to be a deterrent. It functions like a force field, paralysing everyone in range with an encouraging smile on their lips. You want to hold up a mirror and ask: How exactly are those smiles supposed to help me?

That afternoon, I lay on my bed and closed my eyes and saw a burning heart suspended in darkness, shooting off light in every direction. It wasn't a dream, because nothing happened. The heart just hung there.

I looked down at the city. Its extravagance felt wasteful, like gushing oil or some other precious thing Bennie was hoarding for himself, using it up so no one else could get any. I thought: if I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.

The Zensunni approach to birth is to wait without purpose in the state of highest tension. Do not compete with what is happening. To compete is to prepare for failure. Do not be trapped by the need to achieve anything. This way, you achieve everything.

I'm weak of muscle, but strong of mouth; cheap to feed, but costly to fill. Empty me as you will, there's still more in me than men put there.

It occurred to Paul then that all creatures must carry some kind of destiny stamped out by purposes of varying strengths by the fixation of training and disposition.

He could feel the aridity of life around him like an accusation. You did this! They'd become a civilization of dry-eyed watchers and tale-tellers, people who solved all problems with power ... and more power ... and still more power - hating every erg of it.

Mystery blinded the eyes.

Selecting among agonies, he thought, made even lesser agonies near unbearable.

Machines could not be fashioned in th eimage of a man's mind, he saidm but he betrayed by every action tha he preferred machines to men, statistics to indivifuals, the faraway general view to the intimate persona; touvh requiring imagination and initative.

He stood apart from his rulers - Emperor, Guild, Bene Gesseritm Landsraad, Family or Qizarate. His gods were Routine and Records. He was served by Mentats and prodigious filing systems. Expediency was the first word in his catechism, although he gave proper lip-service to the precepts of the Butlerians.

A more honest label he would've been Propogation of the Bureaucracy, he thought. A type of religious civil servant had sprung up all through his universe. This new man of the Qizarate was more often a convert. He seldom displaced a Fremen in the key posts, but he was filling all the interstices. He used melange as much to show he should afford it as for the geriatric benefits.

You can't stop a mental epidemic. It leaps from person to person across parsecs. It's overwhelmingly contagious. It strikes at the unprotected side, in the place where we lodge the fragments of other such plagues. Who can stop such a thing? Muad'Dib hasn't the antidote. The thing has roots in chaos. Can orders reach there?