"Looking at the mountain is an instant relief from all pain"

[asakiyume]

Some quotes from Ailton Krenak's Life is Not Useful, (trans. Jamille Pinheiro Dias). These are from the essay "You Can't Eat Money."

Here, on the other side of the river, there is a mountain that guards our village ... Looking at the mountain is an instant relief from all pain. Life moves through everything, through rock, the ozone layer, glaciers. Life goes from the oceans to solid ground; it crosses from north to south in all directions. Life is this crossing of the planet's living organism on an immaterial scale. Instead of thinking about the Earth's organism breathing, which is very difficult, let's think about life passing through mountains, caves, rivers, forests.

And earlier, regarding Elon Musk and his ilk:

[Recently there are] billionaires who have the crazy idea of creating a biosphere, a copy of the Earth. That copy will be as mediocre as they are. If a part of us thinks we can colonize another planet, it means we still haven't learned anything from our experience here on Earth. I wonder how many Earths these people need to consume before they understand they are on the wrong path.

Comments

[sartorias]

What powerful images in that first one.

Re the second, sigh. They grab more money but it never seems to make them any smarter. Just more dangerous, like a three year old stumbling on a chain saw.

[asakiyume]

Yes, everything about that first quote is a great big YES. And totally agree with you re: the second.

[sovay]

Life is this crossing of the planet's living organism on an immaterial scale.

I like that a lot.

That copy will be as mediocre as they are.

I'll take people who should never be allowed to be demiurges for a thousand, Alex.

[asakiyume]

People you wouldn't trust with a Lego set, let alone the biosphere or outer space -_-

And yes, life moving on and through the planet the way plasma twists and curls on the sun.

[light_of_summer]

YES to both of these, with the one caveat that I would't expect "instant relief from pain" from looking at the mountain to necessarily mean complete relief from pain (which can be so persistent that I'm not finding adequately negative adjectives or linguistic intensifiers to express my experience).

I really like your second paragraph in the response above, too: "...life moving on and through the planet the way plasma twists and curls on the sun." The magma under the earth's crust is probably twisting and curling, too, if with less obvious freedom. As are the tectonic plates that underlie our continents, though very, very slowly. 😌

Thanks for sharing the quotes! I'm intruigued enough to check whether my libraries offer the book, though I will also be keeping an eye out for whether Ailton Krenak habitually over-generalizes. (Looks like he might.)

[asakiyume]

The magma under the earth's crust is probably twisting and curling, too, if with less obvious freedom. As are the tectonic plates that underlie our continents, though very, very slowly. --Yes; its time scale so different <3

I'm so sorry for your experience of pain.

[light_of_summer]

Thanks for your sympathy re pain. I'm relieved to say that I haven't had much in the way of intense-and-prolongedly-painful experiences during recent decades of my life.

I find it significantly easier to cope with pain that is either short-term and intense or long-term and mild than with pain that is both intense and long-term. I had a couple of bouts of questionably-diagnosed abdominal pain in my 20s and 30s that each really messed with my quality of life for months—I'm so thankful that level of problem hasn't recurred for me, since!

(And I hope that wasn't TMI. Might've been better if I skipped the herstory and left the reassurances to stand alone, but not sure—the comment might've felt incomplete, without the harder bits...)

[asakiyume]

Not at all TMI--It's relevant and important. ... It's hard to decide how much to share about a thing. I've sometimes written out stuff and then deleted it unposted... and other times I've hit post. I know once I post a reply (meaning: once I post a reply to your comment here), it seals the comment down, but if ever I do reply and you have regrets/want to delete something, I think you still can? And I'll always delete a thread if you want. But anyway, as for *me*, I'm touched and honored that you should share, and it doesn't freak me out or discomfort me in the least.

[light_of_summer]

Good to know—thanks and yay us! 😊/\😊

(I posted this in the wrong place in the thread, the first time, and deleted it to post this one, instead.)

[asakiyume]

😘 ☺️

[kore]

This is so good.

[asakiyume]

I love things that capture some part of the movement of life like this.

(Not YOU, Elon. You're the opposite)

[http://lotuslandfineart.com/velvetrope/]

I hope the billionaires do leave. Then maybe the rest of us can have an enlightened, more just society in many ways.

[asakiyume]

We'd definitely stand a better chance without them!

[minoanmiss]

I saw a cute story along those lines aand just spent five minutes trying to find the link to add here.

[asakiyume]

It's a ripe topic for a story!

Frankly, all the SF stories that posit the rich and mighty living in space while the impoverished struggle along on a despoiled Earth always make me laugh. Nope nope nope. Earth, no matter how poisoned it gets, will always be a more loving, more sustaining home than a tin can floating in the crushing vacuum of space, and also most likely more sustaining than life on a planet whose environment, without monumental interference, would kill you. (That's something The Expanse [only ever saw the tv series; didn't read the books] got right.) So yeah! You go for it, billionaire assholes!

[smokingboot]

There's so much to these quotes!

The Elon Musk one reminds me of myself as a child who loved and still loves Star Trek, exploration, brave new worlds... But as an adult I realise that if all we do is move through the stars doing exactly the same, we're effectively creating dustbins to rummage through as we go, and nothing gets better. We are a lot closer to Weyland-Yutani than The Federation.

[asakiyume]

Had to look up Weyland-Yutani, but yes! Sadly, yes.

[amaebi]

But their ant farms are really good. Like, almost realistic models of the late Roman Empire!

[asakiyume]

The billionaires' ant farms?

[amaebi]

Yes. Their biospheres are ant farms. Most things they make are ant farms. So superior to Mere Reality!