schematicsofhumanitas

[schematicsofhumanitas]

Black Waves (Part 1)

I'm an immigrant and I haven't visited my country in decades, as the ghosts of the cold war have made sure myself not to come back to what once had been my home. Most of my family escaped long time ago to other countries except for my grandmother Martha and her daughter Ilia -who are still alive, living in the same town-, and basically we're spread out in the World, most of us currently living in west Europe.

My childhood years -before any crisis hit us- were golden. As I text this story, hundreds of colorful memories come to my mind and I can't but help to have a smile on my face. Back in the years, my cousins and I used to go exploring the surroundings of our town. There's a lake close to where our families used to live and sometimes went by the shore and enjoyed eating some snacks with the rest of our cousins. In total, it's five of us: my brother Gilbert and me -Shawn-, our two cousins Roberta and Niki, and our third cousin Wilson, Ilia's son.

For the most part of our childhood, we used to catch the crabs and put them inside jars. It was very funny to see my younger cousin fail almost all times and blaming Gilbert because he was too clumsy at following the crabs, while the girls were setting free the ones we had captured, abiding the law of nature and letting them live. In the end, we would all end up making sand castles, ignoring the crabs, and finally watching the starry night. Those were definitely good times. As years went by and things started to look grim for our future, we'd still go out but not as often. In one of those hangouts I can never forget my cousin Wilson and I talking about life for the first time, when he had just 13 years old. That afternoon we had walked by the shore all the way for hours, talking about outer space, other planets, monsters and ghosts while our feet used to flood occasionally from the lake water. He at some point asked me about aliens, and how much he had been frightened by the idea of being abducted.

- Shawn, seriously. We're here out in the open far away from town. What makes us so safe against a potential abduction from aliens? - ... - I remember laughing so much at this point, but tried to hide it and decided to make a bit of a prank to him. - What? - You're right Wilson... What if instead ghosts are luring from the bushes and just waiting for the right moment and attack? Imagine, we're defenseless against the underworld! I should have thought this through! - Oh come on Shawn, that's cheap. Aliens are actually scary. But ghosts? they don't even exist...

I remember feeling his bluff. He bluffed so much he couldn't dare to lose a step on the way to me, as he would have probably sh!% in his pants the moment he would stay behind, like the 13 year old kid he was. However, I wasn't that old: I was 16 by the time and 16 years old... well... even if the difference with 13 is monumental, it isn't very mature anyway, is it? So after his apparent act of courage I pushed it further even more:

-Oh my sweet little Wilson. If you'd knew the crude reality of the underworld. Hasn't granny told you anything about it? -what? what did she say to you? -could feel the change in tone, I was really nailing it with the prank!-. -well... this lake is wicked. Whenever night falls, some portals can be opened if you do the right rituals. And some say, we can get to see our ancestors.

He of course couldn't hold it. He started pleading me to go back, but as I said before: being 16 over 13 does not necessarily make you mature enough. So I grab one bush branch and run back to where the sand is, while his whining starts getting louder and more frequent. I am ignoring him and make a semi-circle with the curved side pointing at the lake, and a triangle pointing at the forest just like the tip of an arrow, crossed by a long arc with a curvature of the same orientation as the semi-circle. I really, really had made that symbol up, out of nowhere, and I felt it was so cool. So cool, I still remember it.

-What did you do? What did you do Shawn! -This is the symbol for a portal. We will be met with ghosts soon enough. -No, what are you doing? delete that!

I had really gotten carried away by the moment, as I remember enjoying his anxiety a bit too much. After arguing for a couple of minutes, he had convinced me of getting rid of the symbol and go back to town. But then something very, very weird happened...

The night had fallen since a while now, it was around 9 pm and the moon was up, exactly half moon. As soon as we had decided to go back to town, basically going back through the lake shore where we came from, everything got darker, way darker. At night we could normally see a lot of starts, but this time... this time was incredible. It seemed like a planetarium as Wilson and I looked up. It was beautiful: all the starts you could think of, absolutely everything was visible: so many constellations, maybe even Mars... I still remember it clearly even after so many years.

Infatuated. The beauty of the moment was beyond all we'd seen before, until we realized something wasn't normal about this. We could still see the moon, it hadn't been clouded, it was still as bright as ever! But the lake? The moon reflection on the lake had completely vanished, and the light reflection had also disappeared. I stopped feeling water on my feet, then stopped hearing the sound of it clashing with the sand, and then I looked left.

It was so, SO dark. It was a huge mass of nothingness next to us, and I'm sure we could feel the cold void, so strong, we didn't even dare to scream. Then, seconds later, a slight, very high pitch noise was coming from somewhere, but could not identify the source. It was in this instant when I felt we were going to be killed.

-what the hell is this? -I murmured, trying to keep it calm as much as possible-.

Wilson didn't even say anything. Just a split second had passed and he held my hand and forced me to run with him. To his immense fear driving his body at the moment, I obeyed and ran as fast as I could as well.

Never had I ever ran so fast for so long my entire life, and I'm pretty sure neither had Wilson. Finally we arrived home with pale faces, sweating and being interrogated by my parents, and then his parents. They, desperate as they were to know what had happened, also had to wait for us to cool down and come up with some explanation for the weirdest and scariest thing we had ever experienced in our lives, by far. I told my parents about it and I can never forget their skeptical faces, just as my uncles did right after. They even went to the lake to check out what we had told them, and as soon as we arrived to the lake shore -like 10 minutes walking or so-, we could already see our family walking back from it, not surprised at all. The lake, the reflection, the sound of the waves... everything was there, untouched.

Years passed by, and Wilson and I never talked about it again. Maybe he even forgot about it afterwards. In truth we had kinda lost our bond since then, and even if we had kept in touch until recently, things started to feel different as our families went different ways: I immediately left the country, and he went abroad alone to study some years later. Bottom line is, it was something I had buried with my past so many years ago, moved to the west and got on with my life, studied, got a job, single guy in his early 30's having a somewhat stable life, every now and then visits mom, dad and Gilbert. But recently, I dared to reopen that treasure box, and this is the whole reason why I'm telling this story.

In fact, I had almost forgotten about it. It's part of that set of childhood memories you don't get to remember until somebody hits the spot. I'm sure you guys get it, or so I hope. But a month ago, Wilson called me after such a long time proposing me to visit his mom and our grandmother who he hadn't seen in a couple of years, because he knew I hadn't returned to the town ever since I left the first time. Therefore, I would visit the town that saw us grow up and our old grandmother. We talked on the phone about 30 minutes of which 20 were updating info on our lives and keeping in touch, and the rest was about traveling back home the next week.

I was initially a bit scared as I hadn't thought of going back, plus a week was too soon for me to prepare psychologically. All my core family members were already abroad and we had had a heavy discussion with that part of the family, particularly my mom and dad. In short, my grandmother only kept close with her daughter Ilia and her family line, as we had decided to depart sooner and "leave her alone forever", among other fights I don't remember as it is something I lived as a kid. I guess she wasn't exactly wrong in the end. These are the kind of issues immigrants have to face when they depart. However, many years had passed and I believe this was a solemn act and also a way to connect back to my roots, even if what's left is the memory since the town must be something completely different nowadays.

-end of part 1-

[schematicsofhumanitas]

Dead people don’t text back.

Clara is my friend from school. I was 17 years old by then and I miss her so much. I want to tell you this story because a week ago I had a dream with her after so long and since then I feel different. Nowadays we can write things up over here. In the dream we were together as we used to, talking about school, D&D, movies and philosophy. As we were sitting by the lake, it was my chance to tell her my feelings so I finally do it: I get close to her and say "I love you Clara". My emotions are exploding, I feel my heart pounding incredibly fast until I realize she looks at me, gently caresses my cheek with her right hand, stabs my stomach with a held knife in her left hand. I slowly feel colder, staring at her asking her why but no voice coming out of me. I had been muted with a death call while she's smiling at me, jiggling and pushing harder, destroying all my hopes of living... and my hopes of staying alive. I was liking it, the idea that my life had been lost since then, and finally we could go together, somewhere. But then, all fades out except for her smile, and I can't look away, can't look away. Her smile was staring at me and I started to fear, fear so much... It felt like an eternity and I just could not get out of the dream, and all was black except for her face in front of me, smiling and watching me fall apart.

I woke up immediately after that. Sweating and crying, managed to stand up, write down the dream to not forget it and get on with my adult life. But I felt different... since yesterday I've been feeling a weird tickle within me...

She and I were really close friends, so much so that our parents knew each other: they had been somewhat close since we met in primary school. We occasionally did things together whenever she had the chance. I was of course always available for her, but she used to go out with her friends instead of going out with me and I didn't want her to do that. It was rude after what I'd done for her. However, out of all the other guys in class, she preferred to be near me, just as I had thought since the incident in the school bus when two guys were bothering her: I pushed one of them out of the window and kicked the other one out through the entrance stairs. Naturally, that suspended me from school for some days, but so it did for these two bullies. Ever since, no one else had ever bothered her especially if I was nearby.

The days after, we were talking and I told her that no one would ever be bothering her if we stayed together, because I was invincible, and it was my duty to protect her well-being. I felt this was my duty as her friend. She responded me with a timid smile. I realized she was the shy type of girl, and that she was definitely okay with that.

Our friendship long lived. And as I had mentioned, we were like peanut butter and jelly, especially the first years. We always used to hang out to the lake or to be at each other's home, even texting each other whenever it was too late to meet and talk about the usual: it seemed that we were like a couple. However, we never had a romance: I never had the courage to spit out my feelings: her silence used to defy my heart, and everything stands still whenever I was having the need of sharing to her the inexplicable. So, I always decided to keep it for a special moment.

Things changed suddenly though. I never understood why, but sometimes I used to feel resilience from everybody else towards me, particularly while being close to her. I didn't care, we didn't care. At school we would always be kinda separated from everyone else, but lately she had been joining with a group of friends I didn't know about. They seemed so rude and careless... She had been absent for some days, so I had been memorizing this speech in which I'd ask her why she'd been away from me so much, and so close to those airheads, as if they were more important than my protection. How could she forget my protection? nobody was close to her thanks to me, to my sacrifice in that school bus the year before.

I snap out and suddenly I see her in front of me, with her new "friends" behind, while we were in the cafeteria. - why are you staring at me like that? are you jealous? - she said. I stayed in silence, shocked as I could not believe the insane level of treason. I couldn't believe how she spontaneously spoke to me that way, with that tone... I had never heard her voice with that timbre, as if she was another person, another being. At some point I answer something, maybe part of my well thought speech, but I can't remember, I can't, and it hurts me so much. I want to know why everything ended up so bad, I want to know if it was my fault. I can't even remember what happened clearly, I just remember I was being constrained by three guys, as if I was some sort of monster... I also remember everybody looking at me, terrified. That really terrified me too. I felt I was like an endangered species, being threatened by humankind, so I ran away, as fast as I could. I just wanted to ask Clara why had she done that to me, why. I really wanted to, but there was no other choice but to retaliate... her well being was being compromised by those school dangers, and I had to do something about it. She didn't even realize this... but I had to be the one opening her eyes.

Some days had passed and I was suspended from school. The third day after I decided to call Clara. I had to do something as I was losing my mind. So I sneak downstairs and take the wireless phone from my parent's house, because my phone had been taken away and I call her immediately.

- Clara, is it you? - I asked. - Yes. Who is it? - Me, Ethan. I miss you. What happened? - I don't wanna talk to you, Ethan. - Why? What have I done? - Are you seriously asking me this? Ethan have you lost your mind even more? - This makes no sense, I'm coming to you. I need to know why you're being so mean to me. - Ethan... no.

As soon as we hung up, I could already feel her tears rolling down her cheeks, but not mine. Let me tell you: love is a sick thing of humans. We're quite rational, we think, but in the end things come down to desire and are dictated by some incomprehensible realizations within our minds.

I take my backpack with the board games and head right out to her house, 10 minutes walking, but I run. I arrive quite soon and I knock the door but no one answers. I feel Clara was disappearing from my life, so I started yelling at the door her name: CLARA! CLARA! and no one was ever answering me, until somebody opened the door: it was her dad. He told me I must go or else he was going to call the police. What nonsense is this? He knows CLARA is my friend, we've always been! So I push this idiot and force my entry, head upstairs. I was engulfed in a cloud of rage, I could not control myself. Clara is in her room, frightened... I tried talking to her, then hugging her, but she wasn't moving. Then I cried, and I felt the sky was falling, as I had lost the most important thing in my life: her confidence.

Apparently I was taken away that day. I then moved to an institute of advanced studies on philosophy some hours away from the city. The place is so exclusive, you don't get to go out, could you believe? You are secluded to exploit your talent as a thinker and you're paid very, very well. You also get the opportunity to meet so many great thinkers... it's a sublime environment, I really like it. Even my parents are proud of me now, before they weren't even happy with me. Maybe I was meant for this, to innovate the world with out of the box ideas alongside my colleagues, come up with unconventional solutions for the actual problems that condemn the development of humanity. In the end, not everybody can be very intelligent.

I've been living here since then, and here you have me. We have this chance to express ourselves now since some months ago. At least, to several of the researchers, me included. It's a test from some other researchers that manage the rest of us: they're considered the faculty of the institution, and sometimes they come up with these things since there are several open experiments to which all of us are subjected to in order to study the human brain superiority over the species, or so they say. In any case, it's just technicalities and I seriously understand it.

Anyway. After the dream, and since last week, she suddenly started texting me again just like before: "Hey Ethan how are you?", "wanna go out sometime?", "I miss our D&D afternoons...", "remember when we used to shatter to pieces the theories of Descartes? Really, who could believe such things".

But I don't get it. Why is she texting me after so long? Something is there telling me something's odd about this. I really wanted her to be here with me these years and now she comes to me under such circumstances? I can't leave my academia now! I have so many things to do: on top of the thinking process and development, everyday I must manage my other friends and I'm the designated opener of the cafeteria. The colleagues say that I still have some duties to do before I can be free again, which makes sense! I haven't even been able to finish my own theory of the Evil genius, and I also receive visits from my parents from time to time which is okay. Why doesn't she try visiting me instead? I really don't understand.

I go into deep introspective. There must be something I can do, right? I mean, she might be thinking that I don't want to see her again. Texting back or maybe even calling would be better, however my colleagues told me that's something so far prohibited, therefore I must wait to do so. In the meantime, I'll act normal and casually mention this event to my friend Karl.

- Hey Karl, how are you? - Ethan. It's been a while. These days you've been thinking huh?

Didn't expect that clarity from him. Apparently I've been spacing and not being myself. He is already telling me things without even intending to.

- Yeah, being in this institute sometimes makes us forget about what's around. I feel my memory fades sometimes. - That's normal, actually.

Karl has always been knowledgeable, even under dire circumstances. That's why I want to know what he thinks about these unconventional happenings.

- So Karl, you know... I've been wondering. You know this girl, Clara? the one I told you about. - yes? - Well, she's been texting me, after so long. - What? - Yeah... as if we were settled up again. I was expecting her to text me for so long! Can you believe? I need to text her back after this! I mean, and specially after that dr- - Ethan... - dream! If you'd knew about my dream, it was so scary be- - Ethan... - because she appeared out of nowhere and suddenly I was fr- - Ethan... - frozen and then all blacked out except for... - ETHAN! - what? - Ethan... Dead people don't text back.

[schematicsofhumanitas]

Armand the Foreseer. Ch. #2

-Gilbert, would you like to accompany me to a class?

-Class about what? -He replied.

-It’s a practical class to show the interns methods of urbanization and colony expansion.

-Are we going to expand soon? -Gilbert didn’t really care much about the class after that last statement.

However, Amelia didn’t want to share too much. She was commander assistant after all, and given rank has the duty to keep urban development plans classified when needed, and this was the case.

-It’s just in case we decide to, Gilbert.

-Okay, let’s go.

Armand city was big. At least, it was the totality of existence to Europans. And it was indeed big for a colony outside humanity’s home planet.

Urbanization was a completely different discipline in this era; the possibility to “settle by a river” or nearby a shore was obviously null, as Armand city was a hermetic underwater fortress, and the logistics to expand the colony relied entirely on modular expansion, that used to take dozens of years.

As the plans for a new module were ready, the hexagonal original module -Armand City Center- had huge gates layers that progressively opened until one could reach the natural Europan waters, more than 3 kilometers deep. They were designed to distribute pressure and handle it easily, so that the machines could perform any given task inside those layers. There were a limited amount of highly engineered machines that performed heavy labor and could withstand big pressures. Sadly, the rare Earth materials that composed the core for the drives of these machines were non-existent in Europa, and because of this, the growth rate of the colony was bounded.

The outer sphere was another story, however. It wasn’t a problem of materials, but one of architecture. Spherical area was the only feasible way to construct any further protection, and as the depth of Europa was a huge limitation yet a powerful ally for growth, people had to accept these conditions in time, for there hadn’t been any other way of area expansion so far.

Any new module had to be constructed under a new spherical structure. It was made of several materials and layers: one meter of tempered glass under a more complex composite derived from carbon fiber and polyetilene. Both materials had the needed properties to create a huge “tent” from the inside, create a vacuum and get rid of the water, and finally, “seal the bubble”. The longest process was to build the bubble, which was entirely manufactured by the limited amount of robots mentioned before.They “printed out” the bubble by transporting the materials in liquid state, through a connection, like the old silicon pistols. It could take as much as 13 years to manufacture. The last module built 23 years ago took 9 years to be finished.

The second most difficult process was to manufacture the vacuum system, the one that took care of the water inside.

It was a lengthy and frustrating process because the system depended on so many things, as any major engineering project, that the crew assigned for the task (apart from the fact that it was the only capable crew, since few wanted to take part in such a dangerous project) had to handle it by modeling stages.

<<to be continued>>

[schematicsofhumanitas]

Armand the foreseer. Ch#1

<<We were less than a hundred back in the days. Our crew was considered numerous, however, for an extraterrestrial mission.

We were part of the 153 crew members assigned for the First international cooperative extraterrestrial exploration mission, ICEEM, and we had already established a sustainable independent base of operations in Europa, Jupiter's moon. It's an underwater base, as you may already know -whoever is reading this-, provided with the necessary survival sustainable micro-system to contain itself when isolated, and also to grow. It kept constant limited communication with Earth, or used to...

This mission has been my life. And me, among other 26 original crew members today, are the only ones left in this moon, that were born on Earth. This is, because the mission was an all out mission, a complete bet on humanity's decision to widespread throughout the solar system. We, the ones in the crew, were among the few professionals on Earth that were willing to travel in a spaceship for 16 years and establish the first extraterrestrial soon-to-be human colony. We had done 2 trips already, and I was in both of them. I've been living in space for more than 32 years, and hell do I not regret it now.

Both trips had different missions, and they were fulfilled with 100% success. Logically, permanent and multiple trips had been scheduled once confirmed the colony's stability and once the required population was registered. Also, commercial permanent moving trips for non-professional crew members were planned in the next 25 years.

This has been an ice bucket. Humanity has had to adopt very rudimentary political systems in order to make very small colonizing societies functional. We are different from the people of Earth. We think differently and feel differently. I can't explain how frustrating it is to see how much so many value the Earth and its surface, overlapping what should be humanity's true interest: an insurance of our survival: interplanetary colonization.

This is the very reason we had been such a happy crew. Our view of the universe had a very different color and texture from the ones on Earth, to the extent of deciding to survive around an infinite void of nothingness for 16 years, isolated from almost everything we knew, submitting ourselves to a deliberate, yet Earth controlled colonizing mission.

We weren't allowed to have kids while on the trip, and after the second trip, we would brng new crew members to fulfill the colony objective. Young crew members from all races, 18 years old, who would be parents from its 34 years old. Naturally, Europa's demographics are very uncommon for Earth's standards. Today, there isn't anyone in the colony between the ages of 20 and 56, due to that particular phenomenon. There are all kinds of fully prepared professionals, most of the crew members had to undergo a lengthy process of tests, assuring prosperity for the mission. All was prepared beforehand. It was a multi-state/multi-national joint megaproject. Therefore, the second trip would assure growth -and it did so far- independent from Earth.

The third trip brought as well the necessary crew to implement all the basic elements a civilized community needs: political system, economics, urban planning, education, language, engineering, and biodiversity. Everything had been going perfectly. Life was a success in Europa, until...

Until that day came. The day in which we were waiting for feedback and we didn't receive it. The day we were left alone, forever.

The second's trip returning assigned crew had already departed to Earth. Jim Barton, Olivia Déroule, and Mikel Vasilik were the crew administrators. 5 Earth months had already passed and constant communications had been kept with them. As for Earth's communications, we feedback everyday, every 5 hours. We had never had any problems with the rutinary feed information logs transmitted daily. However, one day we stopped receiving data.

A message from Earth to Europa (and viceversa) takes between two to four hours, depending on the Solar System current overall status. Video, audio and text take aroung the same amount of time. We first thought of any error, problem, miscalculation… anything that may have arisen in the operating systems and telecommunications, but nothing. Every time our operatives requested the system to check on any update, the same damn message appeared:

        "No Data"

Still to this day, on mi 89 years I've been alive, I had never felt so much fear and anxiety. I can't see that message anymore. I don't want to see it anymore. We've been here 20 years already, and there's nothing else I am waiting for, now. Maybe I will die without knowing what really happened.

Jim and the crew were equipped with transmission as well, logically. They had noticed minutes earlier and reported to us. They were frightened: that trip was meant to return to Earth and did not have the necessary means to slow down and return to Europa. In fact, they were ten times more frightened, maybe. Imagine going on a boat through an absurdly fast river and suddenly the lighthouse's light (the destination) fades, and all you see is darkness as you are traveling at millions of kilometers per hour, not being able to go back and with the only possibility of hitting the shores without knowing who (or what) is there.

Weeks passed, and no messages received. Tim's crew was composed of many of my dearest friends, as well as part of the 2nd trip's members. Even though most were old fashioned audio transmissions at the moment we knew about our isolation, I could already see their faces, their eyes… I'm sure, however, that they had no space left in their minds or hearts to imagine ours.

We were taught on NASA and the other institutes that these moments might happen, and we were psychologically trained to withstand it. However, that's bullshit at this point. We were alone and scared, and nobody could decypher what was really, happening. As time went by, our only hope was our crew telling us Earth's true events and fate at their arrival. They would have been fifteen and a half years delayed from whatever happened that day.

So at some point, we could forget about the fear and talk about the anxiety and, amid the situation, the unavoidable, thrilling unwanted excitement. In this era, our colony jokes about it: as we grew older, we started to consider it part of our destiny as humans. It was a fact taken for granted that humanity's real course may have been to explore the universe and move from planet to planet, or moons, leaving part of its civilization behind, and who knows, maybe in some years we would migrate again to yet another place with the hope to widespread our species, and someday get out of the solar system.

There were other transmissions from Earth. Entertainment, news, sports, all over a limited and expensive communication channel that gave access to Earth's world wide web servers. Naturally, transmissions were bilateral, and a live transmission of our colony with due latency was transmitted to Earth at all times. We used to podcast with our travelers -Jim's crew- every hour. As time went by, it became part of the routine, like a ritual. We needed them and their news, and they needed us more than anything else. Every time any anomaly or interesting event happened, it used to be transmitted to the crew and viceversa. One time, an asteroid from which we had no data passed some hundred miles next to our crew. This resulted in a very alarming situation: the asteroid database had been incomplete; for some reason it hadn't been updated. Tim said in the call: "heck, had we known this would happen some hours before, we'd have prepared a footage from the left side: it looked enormous from there guys". Useful information was being exchanged, in general terms, and although that information would have driven us nowhere, it was the shady reminder of the unavoidable, the event that would change humanity's destiny once again.

Our love story ended 4 years ago. We have never heard from them again, ever. Tim's last words were the following:

"Message 43.043AF: we are at roughly 38 hours away from the exosphere. We do not see artificial human light I repeat: we can't see artificial lights on the dark side. Approaching Earth's field. There's no-".

That day is remembered as the memorial day for our crew. We don't and can't know what's going on, and we will have to live with it. This is Armand Walton, Europa's autonomous Republic first commander. May our life course continue despite the obstacles we've had as a civilization so far.>>

She then closed the file and looked at his face. - Do you see it better now? -She asked. He did not reply. He stood there, looking at a void his sight had invented, and thought for a minute or two. In fact, he wasn't thinking of anything at all. He was just in shock after having heard the very words of the first Europan Commander. Words that were prohibited. -Why didn't he write more logs after that? -He asked her. Gilbert, nobody knows. You know nobody knows. -But isn't there any way to find some hidden data on the servers?

He insisted: he was too young to consider the reality of Armand City and the whole planet. He was a 14 year old dreamer starting to question the matters of life, and eventually bursts of existentialism, and fights between nihilism and meaning came to him like thunderbolts. It used to happen a lot to teenagers: they would ask themselves the reasons behind apparently obvious facts, questions arised through observation and glimpses of deep reasoning. However, after having to face the daily routines, comply with the duties related to the educational system -school-, and feeling the first <<cupid shots>> in their lives, they would unconsciously surrender to the everyday, the mundane and the obvious, and leave in second plane the ever un-answered questions that everybody once has.

-We have tried everything for centuries, Gilbert. We have even extended our range and improved by ten times the receptivity, and yet nothing. You may understand this on a later age. She logged out. One more minute could have been lethal: somebody would have discovered the break-in. She had done it previous times, however not because of her curiosity. She was a very different being.

Gilbert was still a kid and his strong innocence was dragging him down on the matters he deeply cared for. The dark but pragmatic calculations inspectors and detectives are able to make: the conclusions and assumptions one can do once being an adult, result of the livings in life and the dissappointments, the ups and downs we have been through, or just innate insight of events around us. Humans can be human until they're deceived, beaten or defeated, laughed at. Until they see a dark monster inside their heads that sometimes may go berserk, sometimes lies down and one is able to control it, and sometimes we may even ignore the beast. Until then, they become either "evil" or "heroes" if they take care of that beast, or losers, if they ignore it.

Amelia, his sister, was older than him. She was 22 and had a lot of responsibilities. An operating system engineer assigned to do a lot of duties related to autotomize the metaserver, among other talents. A true skilled worker. Smart, of course, and had too many traits for Gilbert. At least that was his perception from her. What he felt wasn't jealousy though: she was a model for him in a lot of aspects. Questioned the authorities a lot of times to protect themselves or friends, had helped him in school twice, gave him advice about a girl Gilbert used to like, and used to aid him when he didn't know how to tie his shoelaces. A true example of excellence. She had done a great job as older sister. With busy parents, she used to take care of most of Gilbert's needs when he was little.

Gilbert didn't want to ask that question only. He had more from where the first one surged, but he didn't dare to ask. For some reason, he had the feeling that his older sister wouldn't have been able to tell him what's the most likely scenario of what had happened on Earth, nor what was the word around by the era of the elders, and why haven't we, the Europans, after centuries, tried a new trip even after so long: 400 years: a time in which we have the technology to come and go without Earth's feedback. Was it too hard to arrange that trip? he thought about it over and over again.

-Is it too hard? to arrange a trip to Earth? -He asked, because he could not have been able to retain it for longer, and he thought it to be the perfect timing.

Once again with the classic rhetoric that wouldn't last much longer, Amelia referred to the matter as something too complex for him to fully understand.

-Stop it, please, I'm fourteen, I'm capable to know! -He almost yelled. Contained himself because of his respect towards her. -Gilbert, there are a lot of things not known to us. When I work, I try my best to make this a better place so that we can one day answer the difficult questions. Now let's go.

<<To be Continued>>

[schematicsofhumanitas]

#3: The End of the Orangutan

Once upon a time, in a remotely located indonesian island, there was an orangutan named Oru. He was a husky, feral and self-confident being, and was very popular among his tribe mates, and he used to live with his family in the island's open plains. The orangutans that lived in the island had established a family, the Great Family, divided into two big groups, with their specific tasks. The family of orangutans that stayed in the forest trees, had the duty to search for berries, fruits and termites, while the family of orangutas from the plains defended the Great Family from any foreign enemy.

Normally, the tree orangutas provided the food to the plains orangutas, since in that area of the island the food was very scarce, hence not enough to satisfy the hunger of dozens of orangutas. In exchange, the ones from the plains would defend the area, though most of the time they played, mated, had lots of fun, and waited for the food and when an enemy came close, it was only a matter of time for it to escape, since having to face dozens of fierce and angry orangutans ready to fight was not a good idea.

One day, Oru was really hungry and the tree orangutas hadn't brought the food yet, and they had taken more time than usual. So he decided to go to the forest to see what was happening. Upon climbing the branches of the trees in the dense part of the forest, he saw that the tree orangutas were eating the berries and termites. Oru, now shocked, asks them:

-Why are you eating the food before us, the ones from the plains?

-We are hungry and we are too tired. Besides, if we don't eat, we won't be able to carry the precious and heavy food to the plains -Said Tani, one of the termites collectors.

-But I'm hungry, and I assure you the rest is as well, and also, I'm pretty sure you guys eat more than us! -claims Oru.

-We collect all we can, so all of the Great Family members can eat. It is a long, boring and exhausting job, and requires practice and knowledge, so be patient and wait in the plains.

Oru stays still for a moment, and meditates. He observes the majestic trees, takes advantage of the shading, protecting him from sunlight, feels the warm temperature that the island's vegetation brings, the humid odor, the soothing breezes that come from the rocky hills and the beautiful sings from golden orioles that one could barely hear, but that nonetheless would provide an amazing sense of peace.

He therefore goes back, furious, to the plains. He arrived a bit tired so he rests. He raises his head and feels the merciless sunlight in his face so he lowers his head again, and what he can see is the vast fields with scarce vegetation, the shores in the distance, and of course, his family on the landscape.

-Are you hungry? -Oru asks to his relatives.

The tribe answers yes in unison. Then Oru asks them:

-The ones in the trees are eating the food first! And the worst of all, they are eating more! -He yelled at the tribe. -One can see that they are well fed, have better skin than us, and they are happier!

The tribe seemed uneasy and confused. Almost immediately, asks Oru what to do.

-We are stronger. When they arrive to bring our food, we will expel them from the island since they are traitors!

The Plains Orangutas were shouting in euphoria and felt unruly. A few hours later, the Tree Orangutas arrived to provide the food to the Plains Orangutas.

Oru stands among the Plains Family and says to the ones from the trees:

-We, the Plains Orangutas have decided to expel you from the island because you eat first than us, and more than us. If you don't leave, we will kill you!

The orangutas that had always lived in the plains, by looking at the Trees Orangutas with the skin and fur more vivid (which was expected because when exposed to sunlight the fur obtains a burnt aspect) and with the food in their hands, they snatched away the food from them, and felt so much hatred and rancor that nothing else could occur to them but to attack them.

There was a camp battle, and a lot of the Tree Orangutas died. They had been attacked almost by surprise, were surrounded, and weren't in their common grounds. Some of them could escape, another few went into hiding and others asked for mercy and to at least defend the Great Family in the plains. In the end, when the Plains Orangutas had won, they celebrated with joy and with the food the Tree Orangutans had brought.

Two days later, the food and the celebration was over, so Oru, the new leader, stands upon all the Orangutans, and says:

-Now all of us will have the same amount of food! -Claimed. -Some of you will come with me to the trees, to do the labor the right way, while others will stay in the plains to defend the Great Family from the enemies, and to assure the traitors don't escape and fulfill their new duty as defenders, just like we've always done.

All of the Plains Orangutans were happy with Oru, and without complaining, they obeyed his orders.

A while later, the group and Oru arrived to the forest, where the berries, fruits and termites were. All of the orangutans were dumbfounded by the landscape. Most of them had never seen it before, and they felt the hill's breezes, the warm weather, the characteristic humid odor of the forest, and the songs of the golden orioles from the distance. They thought they were in heaven.

And, just like Oru said, they started looking for food. However, they didn't know where the termites were, nor how to climb to the tallest branches to get the berries, nor which fruits in the bottom were the right ones to eat. Nobody had taught them any of this. Instinctly, the orangutans that were with Oru ate what they could, because if not, they would die of hunger, even the Great Oru.

As expected, shortly after the orangutans that were now defending the plains, were very hungry and nobody was coming. Finally, after a long while, Oru and the others arrived to the plains, with less food than what the previous family used to bring them.

-Is this it? -Asks one of the orangutans that was now defending the plains.

-Yes, this is it. The traitors of our Great Family hid all the food when they saw that I discovered them!

-This will not be enough for all of us. -Says another one.

Oru gets unsettled for a moment, and answers:

-Don't worry, brother. This is for you, the ones that are guarding us from the Plains! We'll get food for us once we get to the trees again.

The new Plains Orangutans got exalted and were filled with hope and happiness, standing before Oru, thanking him for his benevolence, while looking with bad blood at the remaining traitors, who knew that Oru was lying, because it was impossible to go down the plains carrying heavy loads of food, without having had a feast of berries and termites first.

As time passed, Oru's group, that now lived in the trees, eventhough they always ate enough, they also brought less and less food each time they went down the plains, until the one day that changed everything.

That day, Oru's group wasn't finding enough termites nests anymore, and since it was afraid of choosing the poisonous fruits and couldn't reach high berries, Oru and the others decided not to go to the plains anymore, since there wasn't enough food for all of them.

The Orangutas guarding in the plains were shocked because the Great Oru and the others had taken more time than usual. The ones that used to live in the trees before, pledged to the new guardians to let them go and collect food, or that at least to let one of the loyals to Oru to go and investigate. However, they denied the first petition because they would not let any traitor escape to the trees, and denied the second one because they alleged that, as new guards from the plains, they had to defend the Great Family from foreigners, although the truth was that no orangutan dared to question Oru's orders, and risk itself of being expelled or killed.

Eventually, the poor Plains Orangutans were waiting loyally for the Great Oru, their leader, under the sun impregnating the lowlands with burning hot temperatures. Hot days and cold nights, and only with waters from the streams to drink and survive. The tension was unmeasurable, that frightening combination of pride and fear was strong enough to stun the orangutan defenders, who couldn't be able to even make it to the forests alive due to the high fatigue, even if they didn't know it, even ignoring everything the traitors would beg to them, even if the hunger would make them doubt. The orangutans in the plains, were slowly dying, and nobody could save their lives.

Days passed, and when Oru's group that was still in the trees had nothing else to eat, everything went shenanigans. Some of them ate poisonous fruits and died, others escaped the island and who knows what might have happened to them, and others were devoured by jaguars.

Oru, who was wounded, escaping from one of the jaguars, did all he could, dying, to go to the rocky hills, where he found a hidden cave. He was filled with hatred, pride and sorrow. Now that he went deeper into the cave, he encounters another orangutan, Tani, the collector.

-You…You were hiding the food from us, weren't you? -Claims Oru.

-Why would I hide it? -Answers Tani. -I don't want to live alone in this island, and even though I already am, I had the hope that the orangutans would realize the true treason to our Great Family.

-Treason? You, the ones from the trees, betrayed us! -Claims Oru, heavily wounded, while weakly grabbing Tani by the chest. -You wanted to eat first, and to eat more than us, while we were defending!

Oru wasn't able to accept within himself, all he had done. He couldn't do anything else. Carrying his truth until the very end, and now with a blurry sight because he was bleeding out, listens to Tani's words:

-Oh, Oru. Only if you had asked yourself if it was good that you, the ones from the plains, were underfed. Had you lacked the food, even only for a day, you would have never been able to defend the Great Family, all of us, even you and me, from the jaguars and other enemies.

Oru opened his eyes, surprised, frowned really hard, while two tears escaped through his eyes, and upon a few and long seconds, he stopped breathing.

Tani, the last orangutan of the island, lived the rest of her life alone. She survived by feeding herself from the berries in the highest trees. There, she used to see from the distance the emptiness of the plains, where at some point in her past she observed with impotence his brother orangutans die slowly from hunger and agony.

[schematicsofhumanitas]

#2: The dream, and followed interpretation

It is my pleasure to start this preface of Schematics of Humanitas with the dream that partly started the motivation of this project.

Important remark: I am not a professional painter, or artist in any of these matters. The illustration is entirely based on a dream I had, and its scope is to represent the significance given (inside the dream and then further interpreted once awake) to it.

The dream:

A third person view, with no explanation at all, of a huge landscape with a tree (which for an instant after being awake it reminded me of this Crossroads (1986) scene, though completely unrelated). And at the far left, a metropolitan city, almost 2D like, all gray, dense and monotonous.

It continued by roaming the third person view around in the area, while me having a deep feeling of omnipresence. Some things have been forgotten though, and this is as much as I am able to explain.

For a moment it all stopped, and the view stood still while focusing on an orange earth-like looking element between some buildings in the city part. It had exactly the same shape as the earth, even the land distribution, but the oceans were orange colored and the land was reddish-like, almost like black. This view was not frontal: it seemed like standing on a lower floor of a building nearby, and making a zoom in with a videocamera device. It had the feeling of being in a desolated big city, something like Tokyo or midtown Manhattan, but with a sense of immense emptyness.

It is important to note that the dream was based on visuals and feelings only, There were no smells, touchings, tastes, or sounds. Which introduces the next interesting thing: everything was in a notorious, absolute silence. From the start to the end (explanations futher noted).

Upon looking at the rotating earth-like element, there were other scenes. There was never a connection between the road of the infinite field and the city: its almost like they were two completely different dimensions, unreachable if located in one or the other.

Except for me. I was there, but at the same time, I wasn’t. I didn’t find myself anywhere on the dream, and I was also sure after waking up, that “nothing” was viewing those scenes. I was omnipresent at the start, but then after looking at the orange globe, I stopped feeling anything. 

It’s almost like something transformed me into a .mp4 soundless video. There was this city and there was nothing in it, and no meaning. A bunch of a dense and wide group of buildings, with no orientation at all. Everything lying there, in silence. Also, the road that at the beginning appeared to be approaching the city, was nowhere around. In fact, there were no roads.

Something else to note, is that there was no night or day. I recall the sky but don’t remember considering it to be of some color, or to be day or night. Just some bunch of colors. During the city scenes, there was no appearance of the sky at all.

After that, I woke up. The levels of clarity were really high. I spent the whole week thinking about it. In fact, I had never done this, but this time I thought it’d be worth it: I made a sketch, and a further explanation.

All humans are the same. Though each human being is a different individual.

This duality was explained in my dream. Two unseparable universes, untouched. However, can’t be reached from one to the other. The tree is the individual, persona, the existence of counsciousness, the human mind. It exists within a vast field of nothingness. It lies there, alone, in the endless land of thought, standing still.

Though it may be just one element in the infinite, it is a complex one: it has leaves, roots, branches, of several forms. Each of these elements are the aspects of the individual that represent happiness, freedom, relief, serenity, and self realisation. An abstract feeling one has when imagining being in “heaven”, flying… almost exactly what Jonathan Livingston Seagull felt when learning to fly on higher speeds, learning to live.

I realized something important after waking up and being on my senses again: the road and landscape significance, which had only been implicit inside the dream.

The first thing you would encounter if being in the road moving further, is the infinite field and the tree. It made sense to me way later, after hours of pondering in that state of clarity in which I was. The mind is the first thing that exists for us. Is thanks to the mind’s existence -whatever physical or spiritual interpretation you might like the most- that consciousness and everything else happens: It is us, naturally (again, whatever philosophical -ism you might be most related to). So, naturally as I said, it is the first thing that appears on the dream: our consciousness, and all the “purity” that comes along with it.

The field, however, is the consciousness. It is infinite, as I interpreted it, because at least for me, being conscious is a state that has no limits (and maybe is not meant to have them). The tree is the set of all the characteristics that makes us a human individual, a human being, as I described above.

The road allowed anything to travel through it, ideally. I could situate myself as an individual inside that huge field and just be there. In fact, the road never has a start. It comes from the infinite field of thought. However, it never reaches the city, because the city is the complete opposite of the field of thought.

The city is the real nothingness. There is no road that leads there, and there is no field, so it is not possible to exist there as an individual since there is no thought. Hence, there is no consciousness. In fact, the city is the universe of the collectivity, of the system, some might even say “the matrix”. Metaphorically, all those meanings are valid for any individual reading this and emulating the interpretation, since the meaning of this blog is to look at humanity’s mirror.

One can’t do anything from the city, since one does not exist there as an individual, but as a piece of something immensely bigger, something ummesurable, systematic, conditioned, monotonous. A part of a huge boulder: a society, could be.

Here is where it gets all confusing. As of today, I still have conflicts trying to interpret the part of the city. In my thoughts, I find it difficult to assemble a meaning, a definition as a whole.

And I later understood that the fact that it is almost impossible to understand is something logical, since the city represents everything outside “thought” that acts upon us (or not), as individuals. It sounds strange and too abstract, but that is the only way to explain I can think of, since it’s too broad, general, and ambiguous.

The “outside” of ourselves is immensely big: the thoughts of somebody else, the feminist community, the Irish government, the Jews, activists of Bernie Sanders, the animal kingdom, Manchester United fans, the European Union, you name it, are “things”, “entities”, “systems” that exist whether we, as individuals, exist or not.

So it is too broad, impossible to measure; it exists, because we are conscious, and we know it does not belong to our persona.

But then, you may ask yourself: how is it possible for the city to represent something as broad and meaningful as “everything else”, if when you being there, felt absolutely nothing and it was like you transformed into a soundless .mp4 video?

Good question. And the response is the globe. The globe had no meaning to me and still confuses me, just like the city partly does. In fact, my handwriting of the same day about the globe says: “I’m still looking for a meaning, but it appeared clearly in the dream so I drew it” and later “Probably, the globe represents the top of the system, the control of the system”.

Not exactly. Remember what I said up there about the globe?

“It had the feeling of being in a desolated big city, something like Tokyo or midtown Manhattan, but with a sense of immense emptyness.”

There was a sense of emptyness. The sense of me not belonging to that existence, to the city’s existence, yet me being there, overlooking.

I later concluded only one thing: the orange globe is the very reason of existence of the city. Since there is no way to state anything about the city because I literally felt nothing, the orange globe is the fact that the city, hence the outside of thought, of our consciousness, exists.

Why orange? The only meaning I found and elaborated afterwards, is that since the earth, something that represents “everything else” is blue, the fact that is orange, reddish and black could implicate that element as a shady symbol: something mysterious (naturally, because it’s unknown and we humans fear the unknown) and the city as “a system”, something gray, still, monotonous since it’s there and it will always be there (no matter how much it internally changes) as long as humankind, as a whole, exists.

Thanks for reading.

ADN.

[schematicsofhumanitas]

Post #1. Introduction to Schematics.

This first writing confesses my delight for the study of the human method: the way we have been living until now, and also, the dynamics of our behavior (as humanity) through time. With that taken as an inspiration (and also, of course, tons of ideas from important personalities from the past), these next stories and writings try to draw insight thoughts of us, as a civilization: they try to be that mirror. 

Although undoubtedly empiric, yet intentionally exciting these lines will try to be, they belong to only one individual in the world. Only one citizen of this era. And, the scope of all these texts cannot reach farther than his vision. 

We as humans, exist in two universes, due to our “handicapped” mind built in a structure of self-awareness. We know we exist: we are living, feeling, touching, seeing, hearing. But also, we know we are ourselves. Although I support realism, there is no mistake that our mind is built in a way that makes us difficult to differentiate what is real. I’m not talking about a debate whether matter exists or not, or to discuss about the theory of the evil genius. The main idea is this one: our mindset and consciousness is one universe, and how the world sees us and we perceive it, is another. A thread to discuss whether one or another exists or not is not inside the scope of this post (and maybe not even this blog, whatsoever).

Unavoidably, this picture of Humanitas comes from a sample of itself, and the sole purpose is to share these insights to the rest of the citizens of the world. Why? 

Why. Good question. Well, we as humans thrive for knowledge. That seems to be our condition by default. Is it?

Wait.

Maybe I can’t consider that statement to be applicable as a whole. Do we humans, and by humans I mean each one of us, has the pursue of knowledge as an objective in life? Can this question be answered with a yes or a no only?

Well, later posts relate to these assumptions, and they may involve: possible future scenarios of our history, conspiracy theories, masked distopias or utopias, an a ton of metaphoric stories that intend to frame possible theories, explain possible patterns in our history, have fun while describing a possible fortunate (or unfortunate) future of our civilization... All with the objective of providing more vision to you: a Citizen of the World. What kind of vision? A vision of us, of course.

That being said, this introduction has finished.

Not yet. Another remark: maybe some of the future posts come from previous writings I made, that have been left unpublished in a notebook. I will try to make coherent sequences though it is impossible to promise due to the fact that the publishing frequency and order in this blog depends solely on the Humanitas sampler’s feelings and responsibilities in the system in which he lives (me, the writer).

Thanks, all of you. Sincerely,

ADN.