Public Domain Science Fiction Writer Arico Chronicles contents Wai Z contents

To connect that was what it was all for. It began when he learnt of Unity. His founding meditation had become a practise. After work his mind would be reacting. He was a slave but he was not a slave. To tell people of their servitude that was the answer, but it wasn’t. Yet he knew. Why did he know? To tell others, but then he couldn’t. His mind was in circles. The circles moved around his body until the energy centred on his heart. Once there, there was peace and stillness. Then one day out of the stillness grew an understanding of Unity, they were all this stillness. This Peace was ONE. What else could it be, what else could there be? So what was the servitude? That wasn’t Unity. It was the servitude that caused separation, and separation was needed for the servitude. Without servitude there would be Unity, the ONEness where they all came from. And he had the end to slavery because he had control, the control that came from this understanding of Unity. But if it was Unity and he had control, there must be others with control, others who had gained control that ended servitude, that connected the separation. This awareness was enough to seek connection. Connection became the purpose of his meditation, both connection for himself and a need for him to connect to like-minded, to others who had found control. But what he sought never came, how could it he was seeking it; that very seeking became a block to the connection. But he pursued connection, connection was the essence of his struggle. Meanwhile his work continued yet he felt frustration in it. Was there a way through the work that could express his compassion? Whilst the slavery was the byword, the ruai, a word he had started to use for the super-rich, had found a powerful tool in delusion. Historically control had come through armed repression but this proved expensive, delusion was far cheaper. The ruai began to convince the people that their slavery was what they chose. Over time this process of delusion became quite sophisticated. He had already understood that drugs and career were their stability benchmarks but he had not comprehended how much they were the cornerstones of the programme of delusion. All his life they had asked him what he wanted to be, and he had never known. He now understood that in him his future did not lie in these benchmarks of career and drugs, it lay in Connection. In his schooling, which he now understood as indoctrination – apprenticeship to servitude to the ruai, the teachers had always impressed upon him his opportunities and the choices he had. He laughed as it reminded him of his online supermarket. On the shelves there were all these choices, the packages looked different the food looked the same. But nowhere was the food free from toxins and drugs, if the drugs didn’t get you the ruai controlled by medicine – medicine designed to keep you indentured not cured. So his choice at school was which slavery? [But of course he never knew that then] And the bell rang, it was the school bell for genuine opportunity. If he taught maybe he could help the young who sought connection - who felt the connection. That was dangerous. In the computer world he just shut up, took his drugs but maintained a space in which he had control. Now he was going to look for connections in the young, and that could expose him. He laughed at himself and his fear, there was no choice – he must do it; it was the way for Arico even if at times he felt weak. Retraining was not discouraged, if it afforded the delusion of choice whilst maintaining indenture there was nothing to be lost. Considering his previous training and experience to be a teacher was only a year. Because he was retraining he must pretend a deeper vocation yet at the same time determine a connection strategy. What was it that he would look for? He looked back at his own childhood, were there any markers? He could find very few, his immaturity had provided a smokescreen both internally and externally. But he thought back to others. There was one boy who was always in trouble with his teachers, Arico barely knew him. All he could remember was that the boy was always questioning, and shockingly sometimes he answered back. They would sometimes discuss the teachers – some were better than others, but never answer back; why? Questioning, enquiry, they were markers of an emerging connection. But not simply questions per se. Arico and others would ask if they didn’t understand – that was encouraged, but deep questioning – that never even occurred to him. There was something else about this boy. After food they had recreation, outside they would play sports but this boy never joined in – in fact he can’t remember the boy eating, he never played with them. Ah, that was it. Although the boy was quiet with them and mostly silent in class except for those questions, there was one day – he hit the teacher. We were all so shocked, how can he hit the teacher teachers help us – thinking back he never saw the boy after that. Listen to yourself, Arico, the teachers were here to help us. The teachers were here to prepare us for useful indenture, he reminded himself, after all robots could do all the work history told us was slavery. Ruai needed people to be convinced, why? It was a human trait, if you believed in what you were doing you did it better. Schools were not concerned with learning, they were concerned with immersion, a commitment to society’s ideals, a commitment to career, a commitment to the society being fair, enabling progress, democracy, the freedom that was a prison, a belief in good governance – ignoring obvious inadequacies such as the ruai profiting whilst the poor wandered the planet, righteous war – killing people because they don’t believe what we do. He thought about this more. In history there were these countries which refused to trade. We were told that their governments indoctrinated their peoples only to trade with us in inferior products. The example they gave was food. These countries grew their own food and refused to grow using the same seeds as we used. Our governments labelled this food as inferior, and told us these countries would only trade inferior goods. He looked this up later, the countries refused to use the same seeds because their own food had no pesticides. Our governments also refused to trade in goods these people manufactured themselves because this helped their economy and helped their people to live. The ruai didn’t like this so they forced their own countries to blockade other manufactured goods leading to a trade embargo. But this didn’t satisfy the ruai as they wanted to expand their markets to increase their profits. So they started international campaigning against these countries, basically they threw money at media, rewarded dissidents with lecture tours and wealth if they left these countries. Once this campaigning started the leaders of these countries began to take special powers to fight off these incursions, it wasn’t necessary to do this but human nature being what it is there are always some people. In the end there was a stand-off between the two countries, and the ruai started preparations for war. They would send in covert operations to disrupt important factories and damage the infrastructure. Over time this affected the standard of living, and the people started to complain. With their special powers the leaders oppressed their own people until eventually what had been a better society had become a dictatorship. Fearing an uprising they started to blame the countries of the ruai, and sent in their own secret missions. Once captured these people, now enemies of the countries of the ruai, were labelled terrorists. Not satisfied with this labelling they used it as an excuse to send drones into the other countries until the people didn’t feel safe on their own streets. The people pressured their own governments to take further protective measures. This escalated until the ruai could start their war machine. The war was soon over as the wealth of ruai countries was dependent on a high military budget, and a puppet government favourable to trading with the countries of the ruai was installed. The ordinary people could be never happy with these puppets as they enabled ruai exploitation but they couldn’t do anything about it because the satrapy had the army of the ruai. The ruai built factories, using the new cheap resources their war had won, and began selling their own manufactured goods. The supermarkets changed as processed foods made in the ruai factories were sold and the people sadly mostly forgot about the organic farming as there was no market. And all of this was taught in the schools as countries which refused to trade. He could have cried but covered it with laughter, and wanted change. Connections, he would seek out those who deeply questioned. Maybe there would be others like himself who nature disguised when young. They were of course risky. He might recognise their potential but if he approached them they would only see craziness, a teacher telling them to be criminal. Meanwhile he would use his training year to find connection methodologies. Art and creativity were the most obvious, but with them the ruai had instituted many failsafes. There was a time when being artistic was fashionable. Through art writing and music some people began to display dissatisfaction with the system of the ruai. Art writing and music had a connection - the muse, it was as if the ONEness used the artists to tell the truth – and the ruai could not have that. They changed art, writing and music, through control of publication they rewarded those who made good imitations, or imitations with minor changes - effectovely starving the originals. Once there were sufficient of these safe people, they were all rewarded and the ruai developed a cult of celebrity. What once had been creativity as fashionable became vacuous system apologists who trotted out the same rubbish about the lands of opportunity and how wealth made them happy. Young people who had once wanted to be creative sought vacuousness as their objective. As it stood Arico would find no connections in popularity, but he would seek creativity. His own subject was maths, not much creativity there, but over the years he learnt of insight in maths. The ruai liked maths, those successful in maths, tended to be committed to the ruai system so maths was always something that was pushed. But it was not a concrete subject, there was very little concrete correlation between the squiggles on the page and real life. For the young this lack of correlation was a block to learning so what was relatively straightforward if the students applied themselves became a subject “to be hated”. He developed a teaching methodology to isolate possible connectors. Those who were able to do maths well possibly had intelligence and genuine intelligence used appropriately was a sign of connection. He used to focus on problem-solving in which the first step was key, did the student find the creative spark to start the problem? This was always the key with maths, this spark of insight, and he knew that students with such insight could maybe connect themselves. But between maths insight and real connection was some distance. In his heart there was a vain hope that in his year training he would find similar souls, after all to educate well is the key to every society. In practice this was a vain hope. Teaching had become dispirited. Instead of awakening intelligence being the key to a progressive society, teaching was seen as a safe earner and career-provider the byword. Quality teaching was never rewarded but successful teaching, whatever that meant for the ruai, gave these people status – not a great deal but sufficient for their egos to be partially satisfied. In fact teaching just meant that people accepted everything the way it was, and this was how the ruai saw the teacher as successful. At one stage ruai decided teaching was not worth it. They had enough people to work – sufficient people were not working and wanted jobs so that kept the wages down and kept the workers indentured. But the system was stagnant, and they realised that dumbing-down education was damaging in the long term. So they tried to kickstart intelligence but for the rich this was dangerous, intelligence was something they couldn’t control. But instead of providing the necessary impetus this crop of intelligent teachers began to question. They lost their jobs - or worse, the teachers remembered their places, and soon teaching returned to dumbing-down. Well not for Arico, teaching was to connect. But teaching did not escape the control mechanisms. There was always too much to do, no teacher was ever able to say that they had completed the job. How can you ever say that you have totally educated someone? But that of course assumes that education is a priority, Arico knew it wasn’t. What was the priority was a pliable workforce. And that became harder and harder as time went on. There was less work so that helped but the work was specialised, and specialisation meant the specialists could pick and choose. How do you then control the specialists? That required a more subtle form of indoctrination and indenture. Those people had to be won over so education had to fan their egos. At the same time as you were massaging these arrogants you were also expected to control the rest. They called for separate institutions but Arico and others resisted hoping that contact would promote understanding. But then education was not about understanding, and he had little choice in the matter. Pressures were hard and teachers turned to drugs much the same as anyone else. But the powers were concerned about teaching as it did have the potential to upset – disturb their control. So they monitored their recreational places, and Arico knew this – it was a tightrope he walked with care. But even that raised suspicion, partying in a rec but being aware. He hid amongst those he knew bought into everything, the career, the reasons for educating, the validity of the curriculum, specialist critical analysis; these people were safe for the ruai. Watching these people he imitated their gullibility – and lack of perception. He watched how these unaware managed to convince themselves they were “leading out” when every government circular became their practise. But he did what they did. Yet at the same time he monitored the kids. He was looking for success and genuine questioning. Not the questioning that conformed, how do we do what you want us to do? But questioning for understanding. How does it all work? What are the contradictions between what is being taught and what happens? Even though he had made a life decision with the need to connect through teaching it did not mean that his meditation wasn’t working elsewhere; it didn’t mean he wasn’t looking for connection elsewhere either. Meditation is about life, it is the process that establishes how you conduct life, it is the tool that helps you see life clearly. Helping him to see connections was to come. It was not long into his course, meditation was a daily requirement, it had to be to keep the drugs at bay. After his initial ecstasy meditation did not provide the highs, mainly because he functioned at a higher level in daily life. It often took different forms, a focus on Peace or Unity or Compassion or ONEness or stillness. In his compassion he gave out compassion to others. It would start with finding the stillness, and then changing that stillness to compassion he pushed his mind out to give compassion. And briefly his compassion touched on the compassion that was reaching out from another. He was startled …. obviously, and he quickly jumped back – ending the encounter. But not ending the importance of this …. his first connection. It happened like this during rec. His mind was wandering as he sat detached watching the accepters. In part noting the methodology of acceptance watching the ease with which compromise pervaded every decision, the main part exerted control as he dealt with the drugs, and yet at the same time having a detachment that allowed him to drift off – perhaps seeking freedom. There was a voice in the distance, he drifted. “Don’t attach to youth they are not formed and are dangerous. Be patient.” He jumped back demonstrating cognisance, and quickly covered himself through a gross gesture of participation. What was that voice? No answer there. But what did it say could give an answer, and he mused at his folly. However much potential young people have they do not have insight, at least not the insight that comes with conviction that can defy community pressure – conditioning and indoctrination. They are still forming, emotional attachments with family – relationships through sex; all of this meant that what he hoped for could soon be dissuaded. There was no strength in the youth, just power energy and potential, all vital but none reliable. Engaging with youth could leave him vulnerable – and disappeared. Patience.