On-line vs Next Door–Which community do you live in?

Future

On the metro, my head stuck in my crit partner’s chapter, a woman slipped into the empty seat next to me and asked if we knew each other.  A touch irritated from being pulled from a great story and behind in my promised delivery of the critique I grudgingly looked up and lo and behold, we were…acquaintances. Our kids used to be on the same sports team although hers were older, so no friendships among the children had ever developed. Even so, I put my work away, not without regret, and we chatted about our kids and local schools until the metro delivered us to our stop.

Why am I wasting time discussing a common, everyday style occurrence?  Because I felt really resentful that I was pulled out of my real world, the important one, to spend time in a space and conversation whose value alluded me.  I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to stick my nose back in the chapter. Doesn’t that just generate some disturbing questions?

 

In a nutshell, I’ve developed some important relationships with some on-line folks, scattered throughout the world, that I’ve never met in person, that matter, because we’ve built a community of practice and support around our writing–an act for each of us that lives in our blood, and a part of our lives as integral as breathing. The woman on the subway, arguably a neighbor, I used to interact with at sports functions and meets. Our action was by virtue of place (not personal interest) and the one common element that held us together (kids sports) was now gone. I wished her well but she just wasn’t a real part of my life anymore. Good manners had me tuck my papers into my bag and give her my full attention.

 

Here’s the gist of my problem. Both matter but with time so constrained in life, its as if I have to choose between things that matter and that choice is neither easy nor obvious. With an hour commute to work, I changed from driving to taking the metro to carve out more time to support my writing life. My on-line world also nurtures that dream and my potential, it is one of the few things I do that helps me become who I aim to be.

 

My local world underpins my everyday life, and includes maintaining a wider set of aquaintances in a world of unknown challenges because local matters on a base physical scale when a storm hits, when a virus goes serious, and the internet and phone connections goes down.

 

Of course, they overlap, but the asynchronous nature of the web means that whole communities form with meaning and intent that have no relationship to physical space anymore. What does that mean when you’ve invested your time, and the storm hits, the electricity goes down, and you are disconnected totally and utterly from one of your worlds of meaning?

 

And with the competition for the scarcest of our resources–time–my resentment to sit with the acquaintence didn’t feel right. I should welcome all social interaction in the physical world with those who touch or have touched my local life, shouldn’t I?

 

Do you have feel like the infrastructure of your life is shifting?  Like you don’t know which world you really live in anymore, and or how to balance time priorities with your need to interact in both worlds?

World building: How do you play?

Have you seen the newest Monopoly game, the electronic banking edition, where players swipe their debit cards to pay for property, taxes, etc…   What did you think?

My gut reaction—Yikes, playing with credit card look-alikes, how can that be good for raising kids?  The rational me reaction—No  surprise. Play mirrors life.  Hard to imagine that our grandchildren will even remember money.  Instead of buying Boardwalk with the roll of a square, plastic die, children playing Monopoly of the future may take a holographic site tour of Martian biodomes and have to calculate Martian-Earth exchange rates to create their intergalactic real estate empire.

And what about sex?  (Where are you going with this Sabrina, you ask.).  Toys depend upon and help shape our sense of touch (e.g. teddy bears, scrabble letters, monopoly pieces, baseballs etc…). They involve the hands and body by definition and develop our sensuality and sense of play.  So if play all happens through a remote, will sex in the future need one as well? Actually, if you look at current game control design, yeah, over there, hmmmm.  And then there’s the joy stick.  Anyhoo, I’ve digressed enough.

Children’s toys and games don’t often find their way into grown up entertainment. When they do show up, they’re not really about having fun.  In Star Next Generation Unification II, we meet a 24^th century toy—Vulcan language dice, used by the Romulan Unificationists to teach their children Vulcan. Keeping the unification dream alive, toys are a political statement.  And these were Spock’s toys as a child which explains an awful lot. I adore Spock and the Vulcans, but let’s face it, they’re not a hell of a lot of fun.  Toys will tell.

Designing toys and play is fun part of world building even if they don’t actually show up in our final drafts.  I’ve found when I get stuck with a character, delving into their childhood–how they were parented, how they played, the toys they used—can breathe life into their personality and quirks and drives.

So how about you, any examples of other worldly toys you’d love to get your hands on or toys of the future you know are coming down the pipeline?   You are invited to play along.

Mom, Can I Keep It?: Targs, Tribbles and Other Non-Terrestrial Pets

I want a Targ, one of those a boar-like creatures with other-worldly tusks. Lt. Worf raised one.  It would make one terrific watch beast and I could gate him in the backyard and turn him loose on the excess squirrel population although I doubt that  would be enough food or exercise.  I’m sure I’d have to snag a deer hunting license and pack him up for periodic hunting trips.  My one complaint- he wouldn’t be very snuggly.

I love pets, on my couch, in my lap and through my books.  Pets inject warmth and empathy into worlds, stories and people.  Yet in science fiction and fantasy, our non-biped, non-humanoid friends are always more than cuddly fur balls.  They show up as:

 

• Evil sidekicks—think Salacious B. Crumb, Jabba the Hut’s Kowakian monkey-lizard, nibbling  C-3PO’s eye out;
• Sapient buddies, guardians and alter egos—our furred, scaly or feathered partners in crime.  Saphira in Eragon comes to mind.
• Pure nuisance—Tribbles anyone? (Actually my cat fits here too, don’t let the picture fool you, my daughter dressed him up to enhance his cuteness.)
• Electronic sidekicks such as K-9 or R2-D2; and
• Superheroes in themselves, remember Krypto, Lockjaw and the pet avengers?

So where are all the loving, hugable pets out there in other worlds?   Something that curls up on a bed and demands affection but doesn’t outsmart you at every turn or need a hunting license to feed ?  Does science fiction by definition push the question of sapience, consciousness and the ethics of how we treat other life, even when it poops in the basement and rips apart the furniture?

What’s your favorite non-terran pet?  Any other role pets play that  I left out?