{"id":39,"date":"2021-06-07T02:41:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T02:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/?p=39"},"modified":"2023-02-26T22:25:32","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T22:25:32","slug":"crying-in-the-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/07\/crying-in-the-void\/","title":{"rendered":"crying in the void"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

it has been a long while since i was so devastated upon finishing a book. i have a new title to add to my list of books i truly, deeply adore:\u00a0The Left Hand of Darkness<\/em>, my Ursula LeGuin. i wish i had read it in late teens, in my twenties, thirties\u2026 once a decade seems right. this \u201cliterature of the fantastic\u201d (see Salman Rushdie\u2019s opinion piece in the NYTimes\u00a0Ask Yourself Which Books You Truly Love<\/a>) drew me in to a deep, permanent belief in the world of the Ekumen, Gethen, Karhide, Orgoreyn. i never tired of the philosophical musings here and there\u2013often in a speculative novel i do\u2013but LeGuin is masterly in her telling it like it is. for example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026not so much admitting light (as I had expected it to) as showing the extent of the darkness.\u201d<\/p>p. 274<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

the above quote reminds me of many a dream, meditation, invocation, consciousness-altering experience, et cetera. darkness held far, far away in my world\u2013even now, staring at this glowing screen, illuminated letters on my keyboard.\u00a0Meredith<\/a>\u00a0writes: \u201cThere is no ethic of only always right action \u2013 there is only ethic of the balance \/ the edge of the shadow.\u201d where, then, is my shadow\u2019s edge? my elusive, near-constant companion. the gift of light, the shaper of my waking perception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

i\u2019m curious about the purpose of the place-inside-the-blizzard, that weird gray space that came upon the two doomed travelers as they crossed the ice field (note! i was tempted to rush through the descriptions of crossing the ice-field, this or that kind of crevasse, snowfall, wind. but it felt a dishonor to Ai and Harth to skip the tedium, ignore any of their hardships.). without shadow, they could not make their way. but why was this not a virtue, a place where grayness existed fully, a balance of light and dark? but that wasn\u2019t it, they did not coexist<\/em>, light and dark. they were erased<\/em>. the void. if we seek balance, praise it, make references to yin-yang, then why isn\u2019t the void a glorious balance? what isn\u2019t adding up, what am i missing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

i am tired. i am distraught at the ending of this tale. i feel like a child who eagerly sprinted towards adulthood, only to regret not lingering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

what and why is the gray void?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

it has been a long while since i was so devastated upon finishing a book. i have a new title to add to my list of books i truly, deeply adore:\u00a0The Left Hand of Darkness, my Ursula LeGuin. i wish i had read it in late teens, in my twenties, thirties\u2026 once a decade seems… Continue reading crying in the void<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-club","tag-ursulaleguin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.technekai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}