Why I Write Like I Do - or, Zombies Deconstructed

War Is For Stupid People

Yes, I will be 'splaining why I write that way. Getting a book done when I WANT it done, and as I want it done, and you just have to Keep Up. If you're too slow, that's your problem.

First of all, I've been wondering WHY the mania with alien colonization and now zombies. Now I think I've sussed it. Stay with me, here.

We've all been watching the battle of the brains all over social media - basically left vs. right, or liberal vs. illiberal, or fun vs. scared. I've been hyperlinking ideas and all of a sudden, it all fell onto a front monitor today - terms and all.

To my science and science-hag friends: YES, it's a theory (To my non-scientific friends: Look the term "theory" the fuck up and stop embarrassing yourselves).

There is an evolutionary upgrade going on in humans, from the 2-stroke antique (whose two sides could entertain two contradictory ideas at once - and actually still think that's how we define "smart") - to the 8-level modern hyperlink (I use 8 levels for convenience; it's a theory, okay?), in which all ideas are visible at once, and need to coincide.

The Antique operates on black-and-white. As in good/bad, white people/everybody else, men/women. It sees no gray. It may not be capable of seeing gray. This isn't its fault - and was probably originally perfectly complete or at least not harmful. It goes to war thumping its chest, and what survives creeps back whining how bad it was like it's learned something brand-new because Experience is a Dear Teacher, and as Goethe wrote, "Those who will not listen must feel." The Antique male has an over-developed breeding instinct, best expressed by "If I can't have her, nobody will!" They must destroy any female who will not breed with them, so no other male can pass on his DNA. The Zorba The Greek syndrome, if you will. During WWII, every army on the planet was promised the women, whether allied or conquered, as a prize (Oh, yes they WERE!). The Antique's motto is, "God is on my side and he hates YOU."

The Modern operates on gray (keep that word in mind). Since all ideas are visible at once, we're less capable of fooling ourselves or rejecting nonsense just to make things "fit." We often look indecisive. We're accused of being flip-floppers, because we change our minds based on the most recent information we can prove. It's why leading modern Democrats is like herding cats. We don't accept "masters" so good. Yes, we tend to be Democrats, if we're using a major political party at all, because that's the way it's developed, which is why that party is like herding fleas. Cats with fleas. More girls than not are Modern - and haven't we always been accused of being indecisive? We don't have to go to war to know it is for stupid people who can't accept responsibility, see consequences, or understand root causes. The Modern's motto is, "I'm thinking. I'm THINKING!" 

Guess which level of brain looks before it leaps. It's why we dance around on top of cliff tops, chortling at the wreckage below: "We TOLD you so!" It's because we were still trying to decide while you went roaring ahead (Remember, the point guy is the one with the arrow in his forehead).

(Speaking of metaphors using arrows {Moderns can also be called Junk-brained because everything's on the screen at once} - all my First Nations friends seem to have minds using circular time. Everybody else, especially those from the original Central Asian diaspora, use linear time. While linear time is good for a deadline, to quote from the movie "Thunderheart": "White man time will give you stomach cancer." Australian Aboriginals seem to work on circular time, too - if one of you is reading this, let me know. We're just working a theory, here. Otherwise known as letting my mind drivel on through the 8 levels. Keep the "native" brain in mind, too.)

When did the Modern brain get a real boost? Moderns tend to be less violent, and perceive fewer threats, because we can think around them. Antiques are afraid of everything, especially "others" who are violent. The first victims of the Antique would be women - who were already developing the Modern to take care of their complicated world. But the Antiques, by destroying threatening, violent or upstart women, would be destroying the violent gene in their own children.

When did the Antique begin to try to explain the Modern to itself? When "logic" came about as a discipline. It was the Antique desperately trying to hammer a gray world into black and white - and often sounding extremely silly doing it.

In the past, Antiques have managed to kill off many of the Moderns. But when Europe divided soldiers from tribal warriors, it automatically took the carnage of war into the Antique population. The 19th century and especially the 20th saw the Antiques killing themselves off.

Now, of course Moderns are not threatening to Antiques. If an Antique can understand that their disappearance is good for humanity, they can calm down. They probably won't - they may not be capable of it. And they're certainly afraid of Hispanics, who are almost all part First Nations, and partake of circular time - even though people on circular time are less likely to be violent, because all things have been, will be, and are. 

But the Antique fear that they are being taken over by what they perceive as a controlling intelligence - can we say "Aliens?"

Yup. And they call us "Grays," too. 

They think we'll make them calm and fearless and "unemotional."

And they think we want their brains.

Pod-people. Zombies. Aliens.

And why I write the way I do. I'm a Gray.

No wonder my books - and my hyperlinking readers - scare a lot of (but fewer all the time!) people. :D

And you know it was a Modern invented this thing: ()

Bird Brains

I've been knocking emails back and forth with Sy Montgomery,   She's kindly allowing me to release the conversation.  I hope you have as much fun with this as we are!

Here we go, with me contacting her:

"Love your bird experiences.  They got me to thinking about bird brains - or rather, dinosaur brains.

Dinosaurs got locked into a small brain because their jaw structures surrounded the brain with hard bone, right? So, they had to go for a different quality of "thinking."

We've always said we could get along with far fewer brain cells - which dinosaurs do.  But they do it in a way that's so different from us:

To put it in art terms, we have bitmap, they have vector.  They don't think - they LEARN.  Now. First time.  Pattern upload finished, complete, and stored for future use.

When one of my 3 hens, Red, was out in the cage (many predators) making like a rooster at 7:00 am again (and coming up to it in volume), my husband Dan muttered, "The poor neighbors."

I leaned out the door, saw she was just singing to hear her head rattle and yelled, "SHUT UP!"

She gave me that Chicken Look - and has stopped yelling herself.  First time. Done.

They build a file NOW, and keep it.  Or, to try to put a little scientific rigor into this email, they SEEM to.  Now my questions:

1.  Can they change the file?

2.  Or do they wipe and rebuild within seconds?

Thank you for letting me ask, if only to hear my own head rattle."

Sy Montgomery:

"Dear Donna,

What an interesting email! I've discussed this briefly with Irene Pepperberg and my paleontologist friend Gary Galbreath. They can't answer you questions either! But are thinking about it. If either get back to me with further thoughts I'll pass them on to you. 

What you describe sounds exactly like what my falconry instructor says about her hawks. They don't seem to think (as in to ponder or consider), but they learn incredibly fast and never forget.

I would expect--just from my own experience with my own, non-avian brain!-- that while it would be easy to add to a file, it might be very difficult to wipe it clean or replace it. I have a lot of trouble with this. Birds are credited with being greatly instinctual (as if instinct is stupidity instead of wisdom). Their kind of instant learning is similar to how we learn phobias, for instance--which are extremely difficult to unlearn.

I love it that Red figured out what you wanted right away. If only children learned so quickly."

And me again, after she gave me kind permission to post this on the blog, and asked for the address:

"Yeah, that's a blog -- it's how I pay about $15.00 bucks a year for a website.  You know us artists....

And THANK you.  I was thinking I was being a bit presumptuous, but knowing my gang, they'll enjoy seeing this develop.

Oh -- another note:  In "Birdology," a comparison was made between birds as PCs and mammals as Macs.

As a author and artist who uses both, may I differ and propose the reverse?  A Mac is hard-wired to use, with very fast, ready functions - a PC lets us get our sticky little fingers into the pathways.

It's like the difference between the ships of the two villains in "Despicable Me" -- Gru is PC, Vector is Mac.  One is clunky and obvious, with big blobs of sloppy parts to play with, like us.  One is incredibly sleek, hard and fast, and gets around the lack of "thought" by being open to instant learning and wiping, as with a Mac program and dinosaurs.

This is probably just more of my head rattling, but this has me wondering.

(I love saying "dinosaurs" instead of birds.  I wanted my own pet TRex when I was little -- mostly without thinking about the logistics of feeding the thing.  Or being swallowed by it ("No!  It will love only me!").  Now I have THREE - chickens)."