My name is casey. my middle name is scott fox. my last name is brennan. my nickname is skyfox.
I am reading a book, called Stranger in a Strange Land. The book is about Valentine Michael Smith, who is a human born into martian society, son of austronauts sent to explore mars. He has been raised completely as a martian, and while he is considered, "only an egg" on mars, on earth he is viewed as an innocently omnipotent genius. he has no concept of lying, ownership, or "death". The greatest honor to him is to be allowed to partake of your corpse after your death. To share a drink of water with Mike is to connect yourself completely to him, to promise never to lead him falsely, and to never ever do anything to harm him, because he will do the same to you. One martian word often encountered but unable to explain is "grok" Mike contemplates something for days and hours to grok it. He can recite K. Leroy's manuscript of property ownership and equitable division verbatim. All of it. But when asked if he understands that he owns something, he can only reply, "I do not grok it". He also has what we would deem "powers", but for him, these things are easier than tying shoelaces. He can cause things to simply not exist. He can levitate objects with his mind, he can slip into a cataconic coma that resembles death, he can walk in spirit, independently of his body. He can control his body so perfectly as to neuatralize alcohol or poison. He kisses like no other, not because he is experienced, but because when he kisses, his entire attention is on the recipient. Otherwise he is small, weak, and delicate, speaks like a clumsy foreigner and is as innocent as a newborn child.
My favorite quote of the book,
"Men are animals who laugh."
Be blessed in your endeavors- Casey
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2 comments:
This seems like a very interesting book, but there are a few things you wrote that I dont quite understand like "He has been raised completely as a martian, and while he is considered, "only an egg" on mars, on earth he is viewed as an innocently omnipotent genius" what do you mean by on mars he is considered an "egg?" are there other natives on mars that are much older than him and that is how he is classified as a social status/age on mars?
yes, while i didnt know this when i wrote this blog, on mars, Everything is run by the "Old Ones" who are martians that have actually died, (or discorporated, as they say) and still live in spirirt, able to communicate with the living. This is considered very normal on mars. But the term, "only an egg" refers to someone who is still learning and developing, physically and mentally. Thus, Mike is "still an egg" because he is so young (to martians, who seem to pretty much live forever, unless they forget to eat.) and becuase he is still learning. Martians dont seem to fear death at all, in fact, if you asked a martian to die so you could cook him for dinner, he would thank you for the honor.
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