I recently reread the second half of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, which was published in 1993. I scrutinized this part of her book since I’m writing my own near-future novel set in Northern California. I thought it’d be worthwhile to share some thoughts I have on what she predicted.
Mi querido hijo, over the past few months you’ve often seen me looking at our iPad. Sometimes you’ve sat next to me on the couch while I’ve stared at our tablet. Sometimes you’ve cuddled next to me and asked for a hug so I could pay attention to you. One time, you came over and stood next to me while I sat on our rug, trying to watch a video of two Palestinian children as they lay dead and bloodied, their mouths open, their limbs contorted. I snapped at you and said, Go over there!, and pointed toward the other end of our living room.
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| Summer Lake, February 2024 |
Over a week ago, I was lodging in a cabin that overlooked Summer Lake in remote southeastern Oregon. For ten full days, the only noises I typically heard outside was the howling wind over the high desert basin, a pair of Canadian geese squawking by day or night, the chirping of robins or other birds, muskrats splashing in the pond at the back of my cabin, coyotes yipping and barking, or an occasional vehicle zipping by along Highway 31. On the drive to PLAYA through the Oregon Outback, I may have passed more cows than humans.
Dang, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a sports-related blog post. The last time I wrote about my beloved Warriors, I correctly predicted that they would beat the Celtics in six games in the 2022 NBA Finals.
It feels like we’re at a critical juncture for this franchise. The dynasty is over, and what a run we had: four chips and six Finals appearances in eight years; nine playoff appearances in the past eleven NBA seasons, and since the Steve Kerr era began in 2015, last season was the first time they failed to make it out of the Western Conference in the playoffs.
(My perspective is from living in the United States, the premier capitalist hellscape on Planet Earth):
1. Most people are really selfish.
2. Most people don’t care about others, including family, friends, and colleagues.
3. Most parents don’t actually love and care for their children as much as they feign over social media. When people say they’ll do anything for their children, that’s bullshit.
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| The pride of Castro Valley: Cliff Burton |
I have my regrets from this one life I will live; things I’ve done and said that I wish I could rewind and undo so they never happened. In this, the year of the Lord 2023, I feel like the biggest regret in my life is that I never really played in a band. Man, what a miss—and I feel like it’s too late at this point to aspire for, and playing in a band just isn’t the same thing it was in the Before Times (before, you know, that virus no one wants to talk about came into our lives).
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| Photo by alex yosifov |
Born in 1979, I am a proud member of the Xennials—or the Oregon Trail Generation—a micro-generation born between 1977 to 1983 that had “an analog childhood and digital young adulthood,” according to its Wikipedia entry. Since last year, I have periodically wondered what my son’s micro-generation will be dubbed. He was born less than three years before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic started in late 2019. He and other children born before or just after 2015 fleetingly experienced life without a Biosafety Level 3 virus actively circulating throughout the planet; they briefly inhabited a planet before catastrophes and weather anomalies resulting from climate change became a regular occurrence.
Generation Doomed?
Generation Fucked?
Or, The Final Generation?
