I’ve been away for the holidays. My mother-in-law actually managed to wrench me away from my beloved laptop, to languish at a place far-away from civilization - and the internet. I spent All Saints and All Souls Day and the days before and after these holidays babysitting my son and catching up on my reading (whereas back home, I just babysit my son and stay online 24/7) I’m still not over the enormity of the last book I read and I recommend everyone (for those who have the time) to read this book: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
A few quotes from the book
"Intelligence is ongoing, individual adaptability. Adaptations that an intelligent species may make in a single generation, other species make over many generations of selective breeding and selective dying. Yet intelligence is demanding. If it is misdirected by accident or by intent, it can foster its own orgies of breeding and dying."
"All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, who will lead, who will define, refine, confine, design. Who will dominate. All struggles are essentially power struggles, and most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together."
"Civilization is to groups what intelligence is to individuals. It is a means of combining the intelligence of many to achieve ongoing adaptation. Civilization, like intelligence, may serve well, serve adequately, or fail to serve its adaptive function. When civilization fails to serve, it must disintegrate unless it is acted upon by unifying internal or external forces."
and my favorite passage of all
"When apparent stability disintegrates, as it must - people tend to give in to fear and depression, to need and greed. When no influence is strong enough to unify people, they divide, they struggle, one against one, group against group. For survival, position, power. They remember old hates and generate new ones. They create chaos and nurture it. They kill and kill and kill. Until they are exhausted and destroyed, conquered by outside forces, or until one of them becomes…
A leader, most will follow.
A tyrant, most will fear."
This future is coming - a time when food and water costs more than gold or gasoline. When societies crumble and neighborhoods are left to band together to survive, or go each on their own and die picked off one by one by thieves and scavengers.
A time when food and water is king. And all those who control it, rulers of the world.
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