So Much Depends

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

--William Carlos Williams
~~~
so much depends
upon

a black cat
white

with green eyes
purring

grinning on my
shoulders.

***

so much depends
upon

one small book
wrinkled

thumbed and bent
corners

defaced with black
markers

***

so much depends
upon

gold and brown
coffee

in one tall
paper

vessel hot with
sugar
***

so much depends
upon

a blue dog
barking

run through grass
river

splashing in the
puddles.
***

so much depends
upon

a wide bed
springy

with clean sheets
flannel

pillows primed for
fighting
***

so much depends
upon

notes keys and
pedals

sit and play
nevermind

chromatic chords and
melodies
***

so much depends
upon

words with some
meaning

to tell a
story

without an end
beginning
***
so much depends
upon

a web site
network

are they still
together

friendship at our
fingertips
***

so much depends
upon

a cell phone
ringing

who is it
calling

hello don't say
goodbye
***

so much depends
upon

girls in blue
tumbling

down dark holes
curiouser

eating a shroom
shrinking

****

so much depends
upon

a blue box
throbbing

who is there
doctor

allonsy! lets go
anywhere
***

so much depends
upon

a stone gate
circle

that can go
anywhere

in the 'verse
hello
***

so much depends
upon

me and you
earthlings

dream and don't
forget

to turn off
ovens

A Game of Thrones

Though I'm still growing up, I think it's safe enough to say that I've grown up enough to face the awful truth that summer doesn't last forever and neither does Christmas vacation. There's responsibilities, guilt, school, and, first and foremost, not enough time to explore lands I could only imagine, and the real world, which, all too often, is not nearly as interesting -- but then, some would argue that adults aren't very interesting either so I guess it works out okay in the end.

The point is, that it's been a long time since I just wanted to sit down on the couch with a few creature comforts and simply read for hours.

A Game of Thrones broke the cycle, for good or ill. I probably should have waited until after school to start reading it, but I hadn't actually foreseen that I'd be so vested in it, since it was a fantasy and all.

I haven't read much good fantasy lately. Though I can't remember titles -- I remember it being highly idealistic with parts to be played that, frankly, had begun to bore me (and that's not even including the blither blather of unpronounceable names, typical magic, fairies, orcs, blah blah blah). It was all very safe and predictable.

A Game of Thrones is such a welcome relief.

It isn't safe. There's incest, murder, and betrayal. There's dragons and horses and direwolves. There are heads on spikes and girls who didn't grow up fast enough and sisters who grew up too fast. There are boys growing into Kings before their fathers died, and kings who shouldn't be on the throne. There are poncy little wankers I want to throttle, and others (not wankers, obviously) I've fallen in love with.

And there are dragons. Dragons!

The plot is so twisted and full and intricate that it is a delight to read.

And it isn't safe.

The Wonderful Things He Does

According to Don Quixote, the titular character had no brains (thumbs up in case of a zombie apocalypse!).

In short, he so immersed himself in those romances that he spent whole days and nights over his books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading, his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason.

But wait, oh gentle reader. There is more.

And all the while he rode slowly on while the sun rose with such intense heat that it would have been enough to dissolve his brains, if he had had any left.

Conclusion:

The Romance Novel is the Equivalent of Modern Television And Perilously Dangerous to Brains and Mental Intelligence.

In light of this fact, I hereby propose that professors spend their time on far more interesting worthy subjects that do not endanger precious brains that are not easily replaceable.

Now. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who doesn't want the earth overrun with scarecrows!

Changing Planes: A Discourse

Changing Planes is actually a bundle of short stories about switching planes or dimensions while whiling the time away at those miserable things called air ports. Though there isn't a lot gadgetry or cyborgs, I would consider Changing Planes scientific if only because it asks and obliquely answers various "what if" questions. Since the narrator is a native of Earth's plane (or so it's implied), her reactions toward the society, culture, and history of the planes she visits are described in detail, fulfilling Asimov's requirement and, since it is mostly focuses on the people, it also provides ample opportunity for exploration of the soul.

A major theme I noticed was that of exploitation, whether it was citizens of a plane doing it to other citizens of the same plane, or evil Corporate earthlings taking over someone else's Islands and turning them into a capitalistic, 365 day a year, holiday theme parks (or something similar). Sometimes, though, the question was poised about whether it was good that other cultures should ignore the visitors and the culture they had to offer.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on some of the particular stories:

Porridge on Islac

A plane where experimentation with genetics went out of control. People are sterilized, some can no longer give birth because of the ban. A woman who is 4% maize, named Ai Li A Le, had to give up her own daughter because of the experimentation:

My daughter lives in the North Sea. On raw fish. She's very beautiful. Dark and silky and beautiful. But -- I had to take her to the seacoast when she was two years old. I had to put her in that cold water, those big waves. I had to let her swim away, let her go be what she is. But she is human too! She is, she is human too!"

She was crying, and so was I.

I think so much is said in this simple quote. Perhaps her daughter is a selkie, perhaps not. But all children must grow up. All children must find their own way, their own pond, and be who they are. But, despite whatever choices we make in life, we are still human.

I think sometimes, underneath dogma and opinions and reason, we forget that.

The Silence of the Asonu

People who live with animals value the charm of muteness. It can be a real pleasure to know when the cat walks into the room that he won't mention any of your shortcomings, or that you can tell your grievances to your dog without his repeating them to the people who caused them.

I think in this very Sound Driven world, silence is underrated. I think in C.S Lewis's The Screwtape Letters that the demon had something to say about noise. I don't remember because it was so long ago, but I think the idea was to make it so noisy that one literally could not hear one's self think. The noise would assault the senses, sound would barrage the soul -- all the while making it impossible to sit down and simply think properly about something.

Those who can't talk, and those who can talk but don't, have the great advantage over the rest of us in that they never say anything stupid. This may be why we are convinced that if they spoke they would have something wise to say.

This is why I like to keep my mouth shut in college, blogs (comments, not entries obviously), and the like.

However, the minute this story became interesting to me was when Le Guin wrote,

Since the Asonu don't talk, do they, in fact, listen?

A fascinating question, which wasn't really pursued in the narrative (at least, I didn't get that impression).

The narrative went on to say how people would follow certain members of the Asonu, writing down the few words they spoke, in an attempt to glean the meaning of their Hidden Wisdom. The short tale culminates in the kidnapping of a young child by a man who wished to teach her how to talk -- in other words, he hoped that by changing her environment she would continue to speak and therefore share with him the Wisdom of the Asonu.

For a year or more she had been whipped and beaten regularly "to teach her to talk," her captor explained, "because she's stubborn." She was dumb, cowering, undernourished, and brutalized.

When will people stop attempting to change other individuals to conform to their own ideas or standards? It is disgusting.

So. Can people really listen unless they themselves talk?

Talking, for me, is one way to be intimate with Ken (another way is cuddling). So I guess, in a way, talking is like sex (for me). It takes two to Tango, and it takes two to have a conversation. Can a conversation be had when one side ceaselessly listens? I wouldn't want that. As a writer, I love sharing experiences. I love having people respond to me -- it is a sharing of ideas. Like Water Brothers, I like to have Word Siblings.

Of course, all that rambling above misses the point. Perhaps a person can listen forever unless busy with their own thoughts, but I, personally, would find it unfullfilling.

Feeling at Home with the Hennebet

This one was completely...serene and slightly Strawberry Fields Forever.

Remember how Asimov said Science Fiction was the reaction to technology, and I thought it could also include the culture that resulted from technology/alien races/whatever?

Well this chapter here of Changing Planes was a perfect example of that.

At first, the narrator finds that the folks of Hennebet are very similar to her -- but the longer she stays, the more she realizes how completely different they are.

They were well-tempered. They were good-tempered. It was not a virtue, an ethical triumph. They simply were good-natured people. Very different from me.

The narrative then meandered towards self identity -- something that I wasn't expecting.

If for one moment of your whole life you know that you are, then that's your life, that moment, that's unnua [Hennebet word for "universe"], that's all...when you get old, you know, you keep being here instead of there, everything is here.

Thou art god, perhaps?

...[I] brought up the word citizen on my translatomat. It said that the Hennebet word for citizen was person.

Citizens of the universe, each and every one of us?

Perhaps that is what we become when we cease drifting, always trying to be somewhere else or over there as we attempt to understand ourselves and become here?

As I said, fascinating story, and I'm not really sure I understood it all.

Season of the Ansarac

The Ansarac: a bird like people who migrate -- who live two kinds of lives.

When the Bayderac came to our plane, they told us our Way was mere instinct and that we lived like animals. We were ashamed.

When the Ansarac protested, the Bayderac said:

'All that will change. You will see. You cannot reason correctly. It is merely an effect of your hormones, your genetic programming, which we will correct. Then you will be free of your irrational and useless behaviour patterns.'

"We answered, 'But will we be free of your irrational and useless behaviour patterns?"

I believe it speaks for itself.

Social Dreaming of the Frin

The Frin: people who share each other's dreams.

"The purpose of our dreams," says the philosopher Sorrdja of Farfrit, a strong dreamer of the ancient Deyu Retreat, "is to enlarge our souls by letting us imagine all that can be imagined: to release us from the tyranny and bigotry of the individual self by letting us feel the fears, desires, and delights of every mind in every living body near us."

A few blogs back I said that Science Fiction was very heavy on the theme of Individuality. Here, Le Guin writes of the "bigotry of the individual", which is a very unique aspect of individuality.

Sometimes, I think, people can be so caught up in themselves, that they don't take time to consider someone else's point of view. That is very dangerous, I think.

And dreams are such funny thing -- like the core bits of the soul popping to the surface for however brief.

What an intimate thing, to share dreams -- or nightmares, even. Hmm.

For them, dream is a communion of all the sentient creatures in the world. It puts the notion of self deeply into question. I can imagine only that for them to fall asleep is to abandon the self utterly, to enter or reenter the limitless community of being, almost as death is for us.

It's like the Borg, only on a parallel universe. And not for the rest of your life.

A Princess of Mars: A Review

My first experience with Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series was my mother reading them aloud to us. I think it was in our double digit years but before we were teenagers, so probably about 8 years ago at the very least.

I've grown up a lot, and, though I still enjoyed A Princess of Mars as swashbuckling daring, I found it disappointing Science Fiction compared to others that I have read.

I think that Burroughs missed many opportunities to flesh out the different Martian cultures -- for example, Green Martians have another set of limbs between the legs and the arms: how does this affect their fighting style, what sort of weapons would they make to accommodate the limbs, etc...

Red Martians are portrayed as the more civilized of the two, yet even the Red Martians are quite war like. I think it would have been interesting if the races had been more 3d.

Asimov described science fiction as a reaction to superior technology -- I would also like to add that it is a reaction to the culture. However, John Carter doesn't really have to do that for two reasons:

1. In the case of the Green Martians, he is already their superior. Since they are a war like race (multi-limbed Spartans!), they value physical prowess. Since the gravity on Mars is lesser than gravity on earth, Carter can easily make 50 foot leaps. Since he is stronger, his blows also hit relatively stronger. There is no reaction to be had because they are beneath him in every way.

2. The Red Martians are very similar to humans: sure they lay eggs, but they have the same number of limbs as an earthling, have family units, create, study, and are, compared to the Green Martians, civilized. In fact, regarding families, Carter was of the opinion that the lack of a family unit among the Green Martians contributed to their war like ways.

In short, John Carter is not forced to question anything -- he embraces the Red Martian as being most familiar, affirming his own assumptions both on Earth and on Mars (which leaves its own implications regarding tradition, culture, that sort of thing). There is nothing that really causes him to pause and to question himself.

Compare to Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land where Martian philosophy was devoutly explored and how that related to Earthlings (water brothers to sex to poly-amorous relationships). Burroughs doesn't really use A Princess of Mars to explore social norms (whether different or earthly traditional), political thought (other than the obvious "savagery is bad" sort of thing), etc.

However, that said, I still enjoyed it as a pulp adventure story, just a bit deficient in the Science Fiction Exploration of the Soul department -- which, apparently shouldn't be such a surprise. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know), it's actually a Planetary Romance. *shrug* Who knew?

Also, I had forgotten how many times Dejah Thoris was put on a pedestal with her beautiful face and her perfect lips, and her slight, girlish figure. Perhaps she and Edward Cullen should meet. ;)

Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Review

I just finished reading Soon I Will Be Invincible.

I'm including this under my Summer of Science Fiction because this a story about an evil genius who attempted multiple times to conquer the world through science. However, there are also aliens, fairy, and magic, all of which had the potential to be a fantastic novel of superheroic proportions.

It failed. Dismally.

Superhero Fiction is a delicate niche -- I mean, it has to be. It's hard to take people running around in spandex seriously.

I think the problem with this novel is that it takes itself too seriously in all the wrong ways. Doctor Impossible continues to try to conquer the world in cartoon, devilish ways. Robots, fungus, moving the earth's orbit to create an ice age, that sort of thing. Seriously, if you're gonna have a villain taking over the world two things need to happen in order to make him a villain instead of a two-pence clown with delusions of grandeur: 1. Have a half-decent reason that doesn't include vengeance when life deals the villain a rotten hand in his childhood. 2. Make the schemes actually plausible. Bonus points if the villain doesn't end up ruling a post-apocalyptic earth

The villain of the story, Doctor Impossible, is obviously crazy but not in the bone chillingly way. More in the shake your head and cluck softly, you poor thing way.

It also felt a bit like Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (which isn't his fault since Grossman wrote the novel before Whedon wrote DHSAB). Doctor Impossible even had a freeze ray and a death ray. There were even attempted witty retorts which fell flat most of the time (it's okay, Grossman, not everybody can be Whedon).

The thing is, Whedon did it better. Doctor Impossible wants the girl and take over the world. Dr. Horrible is conflicted between being a villain and pursuing Penny -- a conflict that doesn't really bother Doctor Impossible.

In some ways Corefire, who is often hinted at being a jerk (seriously, that's prime material there!), resembles Captain Hammer -- they are both heroic tools. However, Doctor Impossible goes into monologues in which he says that the good guys are supposed to win, end of story, that's the way it's done: I'm supposed to try to take over the world, they're supposed to stop me, I'm supposed to lose, they're supposed to win.

This. Irks. Me. It's like...predestination, like everybody's just reading the script. Doctor Horrible didn't stop trying and doesn't fool himself with the angsty I'm supposed to lose nonsense. "It's not about making money, it's about taking money," he says.

Doctor Impossible had no vision beyond his character's role.

Doctor Horrible did.

The ending wasn't even worth the time it took to even read the novel. Since Doctor Impossible never let the reader forget that he was supposed to lose, it really wasn't that surprising when he, well, lost.

The characters of the novel were very unsatisfying and one dimensional. They were all either extremely smart or they were lucky. Heck, one was the daughter of an Alien Princess. This bugs the heck out of me. Superheroes aren't supposed to make the privileged even more privileged -- it's supposed to be the empowerment of the average Joe as it explores philosophical issues, the spectrum of evil to good and all that grey in between, and -- I can't stress this enough -- about the people.

This wasn't about the people. It wasn't even about the ramifications of good or evil. Sure, mentions were made that people who had super powers often tended to be mentally unbalanced in some way, but it wasn't enough. In essence, Soon I Will Be Invincible did not deal with Asimov's rule: it didn't explore how these people reacted to their own powers (angsty drivel doesn't count, sorry). It didn't really go into how the public saw these heroes. They were just kind of there. I honestly think that every superhero story needs a person who is human so that it can explore their reaction to all this Super as well. Soon I Will Be Invincible touched on it, but then the ordinary girl overshadowed by the Supers became super herself. Sigh.

Another disappointing aspect of the book was the style of the writing. Seriously, I can't help but wonder how this got published.

There are two alternating point of views within the novel -- not something I would choose, but hey, to each his own. The problem is that they both sound exactly the same. Seriously. They both go into long, boring, repetitive monologues, they both push the rewind button as they constantly deviate from the main plot of the story to enlighten the reader about various characters, their back stories, etc.

It was like a little kid constantly interrupting their older sibling as s/he tries to read a book.

Intensely annoying and rather amateurish compared to someone like Neil Gaiman.

But not everyone can be the Gaiman. But that fact shouldn't deter them from trying to outdo him in their own way.

Timequake: A Discourse

This is the truth:

I was not expecting Timequake to be slightly autobiographical, but something a tish more timey-wimey.

But that's okay, because Vonnegut is still my hero. And, in light of that fact, there were still tons of interesting things in this book.

A Timequake is when the Universe recedes, forcing the inhabitants to relive x number of years of their lives. For the novel, it was ten years. Life is a constant deja vu, where you can't change anything until it finished. And then free will finally kicks in again.

I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, "The Beatles did."

...

Henry David Thoreau said most famously, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

So it is not one whit mysterious that we poison the water and the topsoil, and construct ever more cunning doomsday devices, both industrial and military. Let us be perfectly for a change. For practically everybody, the end of the world can't come soon enough.

...

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that, to quote the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, "being alive is a crock of shit."

This is actually a theme that shows up especially at the beginning of the novel: a scientist working on the H- Bomb comes home to his wife, a pediatrician. As he works to build a bomb to go kablooey on thousands of people -- children included, she works towards healing the children. Odd, isn't it?

Vonegutt described World War II thus: "civilization's second unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide."

Chief among manmade epiphanies for me have been stage plays. Trout called them "artificial timequakes." He said, "Before Earthlings knew there were such things as timequakes in Nature, they invented them." And it's true. Actors know everything they are going to say and do, and how everything is going to come out in the end, for good or ill, when the curtain goes up on Act One, Scene One. Yet they have no choice but behave as though the future were a mystery.

Perhaps that is the allure of chance music: every sound is an adventure.

What hit me really hard that night, though, was the character Emily's farewell in the last scene, after the mourners have gone back down the hill to their village, having buried her. She says, Good-by, good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners...Mama and Pap. Good-by to clocks ticking...and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

"Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?"

Torchwood had an episode about this. It was called "Random Shoes."

Why is everyone in such a hurry to die?

Every minute should be an adventure.

[when asked if he memorized a lot of Shakespeare] "Yes, dear colleague, including a single sentence which describes life as lived by human beings so completely that no writer after him need ever have written another word...: 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' "

Life as an Artificial Timequake

or



I think they both agree that tragedy is always an option, no matter what sort of stage we're on.

And that's just sad.

When the timequake ended, two things were said:

Wake up! Wake up! You've got free will again and there's work to do!

and

Wake up! Wake up! You were sick but now you're well again!

...I asked Kilgore Trout for his ballpark opinion of John Wilkes Booth. He said Booth's performance in Ford's Theater in Washington D.C, on the night of Good Friday, April 14th, 1865, when he shot Lincoln and then jumped from a theater box to the stage, breaking his leg, was "the sort of thing which is bound to happen whenever an actor creates his own material.

I think this passage, towards the end of the novel, nicely puts a series of questions and ideas readers can ponder if they so wish:

If humans have free will, then life is not a Timequake (or a stage on a play).
If humans have free will, we drop bombs on Japan or assassinate presidents and musicians or people in general.
Is that why humans wish to die? (Vonnegut also relates a story of a musician who cries, "Shoot me while I'm happy!")

If humans do not have free will, then we are characters in a play -- someone else's continuous Timequake.
I humans do not have free will, then humans are sick. If humans decide to adlib their way through life, as did Booth, does that mean we are really better? (see quote above)
Is that why humans wish to die?

I have heard of an eastern monarch who once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence which would be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, 'And this too shall pass away.'

So let's wake up and smell the roses before they're gone too.

There's work to do (work that doesn't include assassination or murder or wars). Bikes won't ride themselves. There's sex to be had and stories to write.

Life to be lived.

Other random thoughts:

[when folks advised Newton to brush up on theology]I like to think they did this not because they were foolish, but to remind him of how comforting and encouraging the make-believe of religion can be for common folk.

To quote from Kilgore Trout's story "Empire State"...: Science never cheered up anyone. The truth about the human condition is just too awful."

I've often described atheism as walking over sharp rocks with bare feet. However, walking somewhere is better than never poking one's head out the cave to see what, exactly, is making all those shadows.

...Bernie and Trout had both, since their earliest adolescence, played games in their heads that began with this question: "If such-and-such were the case in our surroundings, what then, what then?"

Ie, Science Fiction.

She died believing in the Trinity and heaven and Hell and all the rest of it. I'm so glad. Why? Because I loved her.

I wish my extended family were big enough to be happy that I was happy in my beliefs for the simple reason that they loved me. I wish I were big enough to give them the same gift.

And even in 1996, I in speeches propose the following amendments to the Constitution: Article XXVIII: Every newborn shall be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity.

Aritlce XXIX: Every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage.

...

Article XXXI: Every effort shall be made to make every person feel that he or she will be sorely missed when he or she is gone.

I think that one speaks for itself.

All quotes taken from Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: A Discourse

One female (most were men, but women made up for it in silliness) had a long list she wanted made permanent laws -- about private matters. No more plural marriage of any sort. No divorces. No "fornication" -- had to look that one up. No drinks stronger than 4% beer. Church services only on Saturdays and all else to stop that day. (Air and temperature and pressure engineering, lady? Phones and capsules?) A long list of drugs to be prohibited and a shorter list dispensed only by licensed physicians...she even wanted to make gambling illegal...

Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws -- always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good" -- not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

Robert Heinlein, I frakking love you (except when I don't).

This -- this -- is honest. This, is Science Fiction making timeless social commentary. This paragraph is relevant today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Unfortunately, it is also an example of Heinlein's sexism. Though there are strong female characters, they are often (but not always) exceptionalized in a condescending sort of way, silly or not as smart as someone else (usually a man), etc; I guess it's kind of a mixed message, but the silly adjectives happened often enough to be rather annoying.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is about the lunar colonies becoming independent from earth. There are some interesting characters (a sentient computer named Mike, for example) and some interesting ideas on political themes.

Which, really, was the only downside with the story as far as I could see -- sometimes it was heavily political (to the point that it didn't seem like the characters) and sometimes I lost interest (I know, I'm working on being less shallow, more deep when it comes to politics -- wip).

Despite that, though, there were some really interesting ideas about politics that I found fascinating:

[when a politician asked how the newly formed government was to pay for itself since involuntary taxation was out of the question] Goodness me, sir, that's your problem. I can think of several ways. Voluntary contributions just as churches support themselves...government-sponsored lotteries to which no one need subscribe...or perhaps you Congressmen should dig into your own pouches and pay for whatever is needed; that would be one way to keep government down in size to its indispensable functions whatever they may be. If indeed there are any. I would be satisfied to have the Golden Rule be the only law; I see no need for any other, nor for any method of enforcing it. But if you really believe that your neighbors must have laws for their own good, why shouldn't you pay for it? Comrades, I beg you -- do not resort to compulsory taxation. There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him."

Legislation for someone else's own good. Doesn't that sound familiar?

The sentiment is later emphasized when the narrator, Manuel, is arrested on earth because of the different marriage practices on the moon (polygamy, interracial -- not same-sex that I noticed but coming from Heinlein not surprising).

This raises another essence of Science Fiction which I have overlooked:

Science Fiction is very big on individuality. Some of the most common and dangerous enemies are those entities that take away a person's individuality whether it be shoulder humping parasites (The Puppet Masters by Heinlein and others), the Borg (Star Trek), or government (Moon is a Harsh Mistress).

Our individuality is the most precious thing we own. It should never be taken away.

Also, all quotes from Moon is a Harsh Mistress of course.