A Tale of Two Worlds...

Last night, Omaha and I went out to a fundraiser for Kouryou-chan's struggling, private school. We made a small donation-- we can only ever afford small donations-- but at least we gave more than we ate from the buffet or drank from the open bar. As policy, Omaha and I never drink at these things.

Omaha and I continue to experience the same weird disconnect we do at all of these events. At least twice last night, Omaha and I met other parents who said, "Oh, you're Kouryou-chan's parents! She such a smart and fascinating girl!" Even worse, Omaha and I appear to be a topic of conversation: "My son talks all the time about how Kouryou-chan's dad fell off a cliff. Apparently it made a big impression on him. You two seem to live such intersting lives." That was a common refrain. There seems to be, at this private school, parents who live "interesting lives," and parents who live boring but highly pecunious lives, and the pecunious would enjoy doing more interesting things, and the interesting would enjoy having a little more money. Nobody ever gets what they want out of life.

Teaching Moments of the 22nd Century

That evening, Kouryou-chan complained that she hadn't enough "snuggle time" with her parents, and wanted to sleep in the adults' bed. I agreed, figuring that she needed more Daddy time. So, we snuggled down in the big bed and, oddly enough, talked about Mars. (The following conversation only makes sense if you've read A Miracle of Science.)

"People kept coming up to Benjamin and giving him flowers. Why?"

There's something über-futurist about trying to explain to an eleven-year-old the difference between a hivemind and a tribemind. I reached for an example. "Do you like ice cream?"

"Of course I like ice cream, Daddy." Complete with eyeroll.

"But, before I brought it up, were you thinking about how much you like ice cream?"

"No."

"So, 'liking ice cream' is just something you know about yourself, and comes to the top of your mind only when the topic of 'ice cream' is brought out into the open, by seeing it, or talking about it, right?"

"Right."

"That's what's going on, on Mars. In that scene, Benjamin is sitting in the park, watching Caprice go and get ice cream-- "

"Sherbert, Daddy."

"Sherbert, right. Anyway, people are walking through the park and each person who sees Benjamin sees this person who's not part of their collective and wonders who he is. The way Mars is, though, that person then remembers who he is, as if he'd always known, that he's Benjamin Prester, and that Mars-- and all Martians-- like Benjamin. Mars doesn't enforce that, it's not like they're ordered to like Benjamin, everyone just does, the way you like ice cream. And the kinds of people who would give a flower to someone they like go up and give Benjamin a flower. But Mars needs people to be individuals too, or it would just be one boring person, so it doesn't 'remind' all Martians about everything, like that they like ice cream; it leaves many important decisions, like who you are, and who you fall in love with, and what flavor of ice cream you like, up to you. That's why it's a tribemind, and not a hivemind. People are still individuals, but they have agreed to a few strong common goals, and share those on the same deep, subconscious level where ordinary individuals like you and me keep their own wants and goals."

Kouryou-chan not only understood this concept, but agreed that it was very cool. We didn't get into the how of this, for obvious reasons, for which I was grateful.

Sundailyness

Kouryou-chan and I assembled an Ikea desk today. That took about an hour, but it was way more fun than I should be allowed to have. Hammers, screwdrivers, allen wrenches. We had an awesome time deciphering the instruction manual, although when we were done we realized that the desk was reversible and could have put the hutch on the right instead of the left. Still, it was very much a team effort all the way through. Kouryou-chan kept quoting Miracle of Science, which was highly entertaining.

And when it was all done we discovered that there wasn't very much room on it after all for her monitor. She has some ancient 17" NEC beast with a very deep tube.

We also ran out to the local office supply joint for another networking hub, this one to be placed at the far end of the house from the router, because we now have three machines in that area, only one of which is WiFi enabled, so I'll be putting in a secondary hub.

We had our weekly D&D game. Omaha's character was dead, for the time being, so it was a much more messy game than usual without her leadership. We still pulled together enough to get the body to the temple and a full ressurection, with lots of emoting.

I made a chili with simmered anchos for flavor, and it was all quite delicious. Omaha made her legendary cornbread.