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A Closed and Common Orbit

Book by Becky Chambers · 7 quotes · History, Society, Falling

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A Closed and Common Orbit Quotes

“The scrib brightened. An image appeared, and in an instant, there was no air in the room, no floor beneath her. She would have fallen had she not been sitting. And even so, she still felt like she was falling, but now, there was a warm pair of arms that would catch her at the end, a warm pair of arms she'd always imagined but could never feel. 'Oh,' Pepper choked. 'Oh, stars--”

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“Context: Sidra, a sentient AI is talking: All of you do this. Every organic sapien I’ve ever talked to, every book I’ve read, every piece of art I’ve studied—you are all desperate for purpose, even though you don’t have one. You’re animals, and animals don’t have a purpose. Animals just are. There are a lot of intelligent, sentient—maybe—animals out there who don’t have a problem with that. They just go on breathing and mating and eating each other without a second thought. But animals like you—the ones who make tools and build cities and itch to explore—you all share a need for purpose, for reason. That thinking worked well for you once, when you climbed down out of the trees or up out of the ocean. Knowing what things were for was what kept you alive. Fruit is for eating, fire is for warmth, water is for drinking. Then you made tools, which were for certain kinds of fruit, for making fire, cleaning water… Everything was for something, so obviously you had to be for something too, right? All of your histories are the same in essence: they’re all stories of animals warring because you can’t agree on what you’re for or why you exist. And because you all think this way, when you built tools that think for themselves, we think the same way you do. You couldn’t make something that thought differently because you don’t know how. So I’m stuck in that loop, just as you are. I know that if I am a person, I have no purpose—and I’m starving for one.”

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“Here’s one way you might punctuate and structure the excerpt for clarity: --- “Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here, so the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people—well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this—does it again and again and again. It doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, another species, or someone they created.” She jutted her chin toward Tack. “You studied history. You know this. Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.” “A lot of it, yes,” Tack said, “but there are good things too. There’s art, and cities, and science—all the things we’ve discovered, all the things we’ve learned and made better.” “All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody. That’s why we have to keep talking to each other and listening,” Pepper said. Tack nodded human style and said. “And listening.”

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“Life is terrifying. None of us have a rule book. None of us know what we’re doing here, so the easiest way to stare reality in the face and not utterly lose your shit is to believe that you have control over it. If you believe you have control, then you believe that you’re at the top. And if you’re at the top, then people—well, they’ve got to be somewhere lower, right? Every species does this—does it again and again and again. It doesn’t matter if they do it to themselves, another species, or someone they created.” She jutted her chin toward Tack. “You studied history. You know this. Everybody’s history is one long slog of all the horrible shit we’ve done to each other.” “A lot of it, yes,” Tack said, “but there are good things too. There’s art, and cities, and science—all the things we’ve discovered, all the things we’ve learned and made better.” “All the things made better for some people. Nobody has ever figured out how to make things better for everybody. That’s why we have to keep talking to each other and listening,” Pepper said. Tack nodded human style and said. “And listening.”

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“Jane 23 did not understand what she was seeing. On the other side of the wall, there were not more walls. There were huge piles of scrap, but far away, and the floor in between her and them didn't look like any floor she'd ever seen. Above them, there was a... a ceiling. But not a ceiling. It didn't look touchable. She couldn't explain it. There was a ceiling that wasn't a ceiling, and it was blue. Just blue, for a long, long way. Blue for ever.”

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