Today I was thinking a lot. I tend to get some of my best ideas when I’m running low in energy and am placed on a puzzle situation where I need to distance myself from jeopardy.
I wrote my very first story...
I was thinking about this one sentence a lot:
“At first, the water is always good for the naysayers; but the naysayers died of dehydration”.
And this is an important phrase, Because it has a lot packed into it. This scenario carries lots of imagery, it thinks of people in a state of nature and in a state that is young and foolish. Because, it gives a reason for the causation of passing. In this case dehydration. But it very importantly also gives a category to those that passed. And so you begin to think about the why. The scenario implies that in order to survive you cannot be a naysayer. Bc all naysayers died. And so it also brings an interest for the yeasayers. The scenario is simple. Growing from this foolish state into adulthood there are 2 types of children. The ones that are yeasayers and the naysayers but people do not know who’s on which category - it is only until later on. That’s why it is important to pay attention throughout the developing of the children in this scenario. In this environment, the children need to survive and therefore need water. For the naysayers they can say: “No, I’m not going to go look for water. Instead, will delegate that task to someone else; I would dedicate myself to do something else that I deem more important as time passes”. The naysayer children and their families are all close friends. Similarly with the yeasayers, they are all friends with the other yeasayers families. It is not that the naysayers and yeasayers cannot be friends, it is simply the preferences of each group lead to a different lifestyle that is contrarian to each other. Bc one group values children in a way that they are to be protected and nurtured, and the other group sees children as an aide or tool to the endeavors that have to be made. Time passed as it usually tends to do, the naysayers grew, new ones were born the children where no longer children, they were considered men. Deep voices that showed for everyone else in the tribe who had greater power, it was directly related to the depth in the tonality of their voices; and so the children of the children of the naysayers begin to have a rather distasteful flavor in this water that they were all drinking and cleansing themselves with. But those children don’t say anything. It is not their responsibility or authority to say or partake on the finding, transportation or treatment of that water. And little by little the flavor starts to creep in. The flavor intensified slightly but cumulative week after week. The older of the naysayers did not even taste it. You see, this small but cumulative increase in this distasteful flavor had been happening for decades, more than 1 and a half centuries by then. One day some of the older ones of the naysayers decide to call a meeting with all the naysayers from their tribe. They had noticed that the tool they had been using for 1 1/2 centuries to extract that water from the whole, that one, the only one in the middle, the whole that formed part of everyone’s back yards. That tool was breaking, the water had been getting infected with led over the years and the oxidation had slowly but surely pushed the mechanism for water collection to its very last month. But by then, it was too late. The tribe had seen themselves institutionalized. Their bodies big and fat captives of their own weight; could not do anything athletic. Their parents never taught them. And similarly they never taught their children. No one had a clue as to how to make the type of rope needed or how to weld metals together. No one knew how to make new tools. They were institutionalized, their whole self. Incapsulated grew hostages in their bodies by their minds - the whole tribe grew then incapsulated in their minds again, prisoners of their bodies. This institution that had very well served for he survival and mechanics of itself would find it to be the causation of culminating with an entire race of people. It, yes It - the people, the thinking, the customs and traditions - it all. It had created a value system in which the biggest fattest with the deepest voice held power. And well, those very people didn’t know better than to follow in carrying their, now formal, tradition. Thinking differently than the tribe was a felony, a sin to be convicted with death; The worst of all punishments. Legend has it that the tribe had seen some of the best times and that the people that thought different were taken by the rays of sun, devoured by the forest and never seen again. The very nature of having a different mindset, between tribes, a different approach: to thinking, the concepts of responsibility, liability, consideration. And, energy collection, distribution, and budgeting; these preferences, all attributed to completely different value systems. Systems that were born out of preferences. The very incentives that coordinated the cultivation of strengths, which in the past lead to trade with each other in the Sayers tribe, and the development of the tribe. Those incentivized to challenge the status quo saw themselves against each other. But the second the choice was made, to not intervene with each others thinking, that day, that very same day, the naysayers saw themselves already sentenced. Sentenced to a destiny with our future. That very same community could’ve seen themselves saved if it was just for a voice to be raised, a leader to align actions, intent, and understanding.
You see, what had happened to the yeasayers was also a product of systemically creating proper judgement. Where not one felt the need to be in power, even in times when individual members of the tribe were in need; because they all were. Judgment that was never institutionalized, but systematized. The very ability of creating a judgement, be it similar or different to that of anyone, was deemed of value. And that’s what it was, it was that very thing that made the yeasayers yeasayers.
This set of preferences made it so that they went out to dig wholes, try new waters, some were salty, some were juridically found to be poisonous. Other than for survival, non of it matter. Because you see, in the past, the reactiveness of the system pushed them, to show signs and sounds when something was urgent, when something was safe, this is how they developed complex languages, they multiplied and created many tribes. Soon huge populations of tribes created colonies, and with the compounding, and ever growing, increasing knowledge base, they brought great water aqueducts, currency, and many other; many more types, and much more complex systems proliferated. Never did the yeasayers ever want to step foot where the naysayers. In their minds, as long as the naysayer minds remained closed, the naysayers would not accept them, the methods of the yeasayers. That, for a yeasayer, was unlike anything else, the biggest act of disrespect and tyranny. For a yeasayer, that was the single, greatest sign, of a lack of intellect, a lack of power. And like that, yeasayers can’t help anyone. Particularly if that anyone is looking to kill them, for having a different point of view to that of the prevailing sentiment. The yeasayers had found that going out of their way for somebody else was not a sign of weakness but an act of protection. The more people the yeasayers had the more ideas they could have - and that would help the yeasayers to remain alive. You see, the yeasayers had always been since very young looking around and trying the waters. They were instinctively driven to give an opinion, to experiment, and to disagree. Like if there was a part of themselves that saw itself realized whenever it was faced with a challenge. Making differentiations with other yeasayers to arrive to solid, based, and agreeable truths. It was then that they would see and be aware. Then when they could understand with certainty with what they were being faced. And that would become important as the step that followed was generating solutions to be tested and recorded. This method was seen much more effective regarding the richness and diversity of its culture as well as with the productivity and efficiency of the outcomes. The yeasayers had seen what could happen if they were silent about the water that didn’t taste good. They were used to it. They from very young were exposed to experimenting the waters, those people grew antibodies, and those antibodies were passed through generations. They knew the importance of independent and interdependent thinking. They understood that to leave someone behind, and to confine their best judgement to themselves was to turn their back on the group, on each other, on their own, to be close minded. They know the depth and scope of responsibility, the common liability, their individual duty, the importance of doing nothing but their best work, always. That time was a crucial resource, the very same feeling of being uncertain about weather or not the other yeasayer would agree with that other then, another yeasayer with a foreign and unknown judgement was enough to make a priority, to repeat and clarify, to communicate. Contracts were not needed. Everyone’s ability to reason brought together with it the ability negotiate, and agree on terms. The word of one yeasayer was very trusted. It was honorable to be a yeasayer. After all, that same word had saved many lives through generations
There was no need to create laws. The judgement of one self could determine that behaving in a matter that would be hindering to anyone else capable to create a judgement could affect the generations to come. You see for them, there was no playing around, even for the people that existed in a perpetual state of play. This time sensitivity along with the urgency to communicate if their internal judgements thought to be relevant to a decision brought to build concise channels of communication. Best judgement was known as prudence, and to always lookout after another was not seen as to overpower each other, they simply called it being considerate. The yeasayers recognized the reality of danger, but they were not blinded by it, and never avoided if they had determined that the risk level no longer deemed something dangerous. You see the very thing that made danger be powerful was the illusion of fear. That illusion entranced any and everyone that came before the yeasayers. But for the yeasayers, while they recognized the consequences of mistakes in a state of danger, yeasayers also saw danger just as another puzzle. Puzzles that though challenging, If understood, they could be solved, and if they were solved they were no longer danger; it ceased to Be. It was a super power - one that only came from the community. At last for the yeasayers, the water was good.