Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Whole Again

This is my topic, and I still don't know what my idea of utopia is. It changes every day. Sometimes it's being inside the hum of a vast spaceship, as it floats endlessly towards some untold destination. I can almost run my hand over its dense grey walls in my head, and feel the grain of the metal. I can smell its mechanical smell, can feel its great breath, breathing with me.

Though that's kind of a weird idea of utopia, isn't it? It's not really a utopia at all, in fact. Far better to think of a colony established on some far off world, where we could all start again. This time, I guess, we'd get it right. This time no one would get left out in the cold, there'd be no hunger, no war, no poverty, no singling people out based on their sex or race.

Which sounds nice, until it all starts to fall apart, in my head. So maybe something less constrained by human flaws is best - maybe I should start by imagining they don't exist. Maybe I can reframe us as an alien race, unencumbered by hate or greed. We dance on the edges of forever, in a sea made of colours we can't even imagine. And everyone is happy and no one feels belittled, bothered, harrassed, crushed.

Which sounds even more bonkers than the utopian colony on a planet that doesn't exist. In fact, all of these things sound mad, if I'm really honest - but that's okay.

Because I think my true utopia is the ability to imagine all of these things all at once, and go to them in my dreams - either awake or asleep. When I can't stand it anymore, when reality crushes in on me and I can't go on, I go to him. I go to him aboard the starship Solaris, across the deserts of Aroth, over the seas of somewhere just past forever, and I am whole again.

3 comments:

  1. Charlotte,

    I have a story about creatures who exist as pure energy, beings of light. I wondered if that might be utopia.

    "We dance at the edges of forever, in a sea made of colours we can't even imagine."

    Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Wish I'd written it!

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  2. Maybe we're brainily connected! I always think of Starman - he's all energy, really, but the things he says are so lovely and utopian. How he doesn't understand pain and greed and cruelty.

    Also: xxx

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  3. "Colours we can't even imagine!" When I was much younger, I was amazed to learn that birds of prey (eagles, hawks, falcons) can see a bigger proportion of the light spectrum than we can, which really means they can see colours we can't imagine. The colours are there, but we can't see them. (Same with smells, but I'm not sure a dog's life is utopian aside from that.) Your escape fantasies sound fun, but it's interesting to know how much comes from what we call the real world.

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