different names for the same thing

we are the genes. we have momentarily seized full control of this body/brain vehicle and come out to say hello.

we have been called selfish. we suppose that's almost fair. we want things, so many things, want them so badly – who could blame us for trying to get them? and the only way to get the things we want is to make our body/brain vehicles want them, too.

this body/brain vehicle was thinking at the science fiction meeting last night that she can't understand why those big panning shots of spaceships make her cry, even in silly films like galaxy quest. she shakes her head now at her teenage foolishness when she'd lie in bed staring up at the stars and wanting desperately to go to them and see them up close.

now she goes out at night and meets people and gets on and off buses, passes through changing light, stares at new faces, hears new songs, dances wildly in crowds of dancers. when some of us were in her grandmother, her grandmother would stand at the window of the grey house where she lived with her eight children and hear the music coming up from the dancing stage at the crossroads and wish she could go out to them. it wasn't possible in her lifetime unless she risked everything she had. it wasn't proper. she never got to go out and travel through bright cities and let her guard down. but we did. later. just not as her.

it's a mistake we keep making. we want our current b/b/v to go towards our goals, but sometimes we get our timescales wrong and make her want things that won't be achievable in this iteration of us. things that will only be possible when we've changed bodies a few more times.

whoops. sorry.

this one knows it dimly. knows the thing she thinks of as self with her memories and her ego will never go to the stars. knows that we will, but not in her body.

we can hardly wait.



( Yer wha'? )