Morning House

A ray of sun shines through the window, 

Waking the baby up from his pillow, 

Who lazily rolls in sheets laced with satin, 

Cooing like bells at church during matins, 

Loftily tolling the bells of the morning 

That birds in the trees sing before soaring. 

 

We rub our eyes, stretch, smell the clean air, 

Wash our faces, eat breakfast, comb our hair, 

Play with our hands, our feet, our tiny toys, 

Laughing with ease, a happy, simple noise 

Escaping from our minty mouths, tongues loud, 

Lips contorted, merry eyes glossy and proud. 
 
Later his cry makes mother alert, 
Alarmed in her apron while making dessert, 
The baby kicking and screaming to be held, 
"Rock me and roll me", he begged, he yelled, 
Back to the bedroom they go, farewell, 
Dimming the light as they settle to dwell. 

In Defense of Bran Stark

 A lot of people are upset about the Game of Thrones finale.  I understand their frustration. Most people expected Jon or Danaerys to take the throne, or rule as a married couple.  If not, then at least a protagonist with political experience, like Sansa or Tyrion. 

The writers’ obsession with doing the unpredictable got out of control.   The groundwork to an ending of this mad story was laid out perfectly for them; all the chess pieces were strategically placed.  But the demon called a “twist ending” reared its ugly head, backfiring on the writers on so many levels.  Someone should have told them that just because an ending has a twist doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. 

That being said, people are being far harder on Bran than he deserves.  Bran is going to be a great king.  He’s reserved, kind, merciful, not to mention he knows everything. Well, almost everything.  The people who think he knew Dany would burn King’s Landing (and the innocents) and did nothing about it are mistaken.  While Bran can clearly see into the past and present, he can’t see the future in the same way.  All his visions are only fleeting glimpses of the future, not actual scenarios.  None of the visions he had indicated King’s Landing would burn, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have suggested Dany’s doing.  Perhaps he knew that giving Arya the dagger that ended up killing the Night King would be important, but I don’t think he saw how it would exactly pan out. 

Secondly, there’s no way Bran “warged” into Drogon the dragon before it burned the city.  That theory has been debunked by the final episode, in which Dany shows no indication that she’d lost control of her dragon.  The people who believe Bran is responsible for this heinous crime are reaching for answers. 

Thirdly, fans complain that he doesn’t deserve to be king because he did nothing the whole series, or that he has no value as a leader.  Let me say that while being a cripple limits his physical mobility, it doesn’t understate his importance in the story.  Without Bran, humanity loses to the dead, it’s that simple.  The Night King wanted him dead because of the extremely valuable information he had about humanity’s past, and his potential to preserve it.  Without Bran’s baiting, the Night King goes right through Winterfell without hesitating.  Bran was also instrumental in uncovering the scheme that Littlefinger was designing against his sisters.  As a nearly omniscient stoic, he can foresee problems before they happen, and see through people who mean to harm him and those close to him.  Finally, he’s valuable because he's a nobleman with a stainless record, whom nobody has any grudges against.  He never harmed anyone, so nobody would resent him being chosen to rule the Seven Kingdoms.  Tyrion’s nomination for Bran makes a lot of sense when you consider these things. 

But let’s not kid ourselves, Tyrion is the real winner here.  As the King’s Hand, and the person with the most experience at dealing with political issues, he has the power to wield decisions more than anyone.  In effect, Bran is Tyrion’s puppet.  So that means the good guys prevailed, right?  Then why is everyone so whiny about the ending?  Sure, Jon would have made a better king, but he didn't want it.  And it wasn’t necessary for Dany to surprise us all by showing her true colors (or was it?).  The series could have ended better, but it also could have ended worse. 

The Bells: Game of Thrones Episode 8.5

 My heart goes out to King’s Landing.  I never thought it would.  Prior to mowing down a city with fire after it had surrendered, Danaerys Targaryen had been showing signs of a mental collapse.  But I don't think anybody could have predicted it would be so extreme, resulting in the killing of thousands of innocent people in the worst massacre of the whole series.   It’s the most diabolical action ever taken in Game of Thrones, which says a lot when you consider the show has spawned people like Ramsey Bolton and Jeoffrey Baratheon, two tyrants who were as pure evil as they come.  Cersei Lannister was a third tyrant, but she wasn’t quite as bad as her male predecessors.  Now we have a fourth tyrant, our golden-haired hero Khaleesi, who makes the most radical character transformation out of anyone in our long journey. 

The reasons for her collapse are already much debated.  She completely snapped once she obtained the power she'd sought for so long.   It all started when John Snow told her the truth about being the son of her brother and therefore her nephew. She’d lost the greatest claim to the throne, and her lover at the same time.  “The Long Night” was emotionally draining for everyone, but she lost the closest friend out of all, in Jorah.   Then she lost her second dragon, had an innocent Varys killed for “treason”, a foreshadowing of what was to come. Her realization that the people loved John more than her, and that he would be a better leader, kindled a kind of jealousy we weren’t aware she was capable of having.  The last straw came when Cersei had the wife of an Unsullied killed.   It was loss, wrath, revenge, exhaustion, jealousy and suspicion, all rolled into one.   Nobody could fully understand Danaerys' emotions at the time but herself.   She is a prime example of how good people become bad.  With enough stress, it can happen to almost anyone trying to make the world a better place, changing them into the very thing they tried to eradicate from it.  Conquerors often adopt this mindset when rallying support, that the violence necessary to rid the world of suffering is inevitable, and that all the warfare will be justified after the new kingdom establishes an era of unprecedented peace.  They mistakenly believe that they are the only ones waging war for peace when they're really no different from the conquerors they condemn as tyrants.  Violence begets violence, no matter what your intentions are. 

Before this happened, my mom had asked me who I thought would come out on top as King of Westeros when it was all over. I’d predicted Tyrion, without any confidence. The obvious answer was John, but that was a little too obvious, and if there’s one thing the writers of Game of Thrones have been consistent in, it’s in allowing the less obvious take place. After this event it’s even more clear that John will take the throne, yet now that it’s more obvious, my prediction stands. Tyrion never asked for the throne, just like John. He is just, clever, merciful, firm when he needs to be: all good traits in a king. He may not be as physically strong as John, but he might be just as effective, perhaps more. The Greek philosopher Plato thought that philosopher-kings would be the most effective type of king, and Tyrion fills more of that criterion than John. When it’s all over, and everyone has killed each other off and finished their senseless fighting, I believe he’ll remain standing because he’s the only person in the Seven Kingdoms that could be perceived as an ally by all parties. Being the highest-ranking Lannister left might forgive him for what happened at King’s Landing. Obviously, he helped the north and the south in a way that nobody but Danaerys had. Lastly, we shouldn't forget that he's a game player, while John is not. Throughout the series he has played the cleverest minds trying to get the throne, foiling them and supporting them at different points. By the series title alone, Tyrion's rise would make the most sense out of anyone. 

 

PS: I grieve for Sandor Clegane, my favorite character in the whole series. Who would have thought his brother was a fucking zombie!? 

Panpsychism, A Belief in Universal Consciousness

Pansychism is the idea that all elements of matter possess a form of consciousness that distinguishes it from others.  Common sense tells us that inanimate objects like rocks and mountains are not alive, because they cannot do things like move or reproduce.  Yet they are made up of a constituent amount of similarly arranged atoms, like we are.  They may not have the same kind of metabolism as us, and therefore would live much longer, but they are entities in themselves with a grand molecular design, full of the same particles in our minds that make us consciously aware.  Just because they're inanimate doesn’t mean they don’t possess some form of consciousness. 

The proof for a panpsychic universe lies in our very own brains.  How could the matter in our brains manifest as consciousness if the very atoms and particles inside us are not aware of each other?  A second proof appears in quantum theory, where particles seem to have a free will of their own, and can only have determinant positions when directly measured.  Some have memories of past events, becoming ‘entangled’ with all the others they have interacted with.  Indeed, every particle in the universe has its own memory, an energy of its own, and laws that govern its movement, just like us. 

Universal consciousness takes this idea and runs away with it.  From the ground up, we encounter particles and possibly their constituents; atoms governed by the energies their particles allow; molecules directed by the energy of atoms; cells orchestrated by collections of molecules; organs possessed by the orientations of cells; organisms embodying a network of organs; landforms devoid of cells and organs, yet composed of their own conscious molecules; planetary objects built of landforms; interstellar objects balanced by their gravitational fields; the universe a final compendium of everything inside it, of everything aware of itself, forming an infinite integration of matter with consciousness.  It explains everything that mystifies us: the spirit, free will, the meaning of life, and everything in between. 

Einstein would have been reluctant about the idea of particles having life, yet it would have explained all the obstacles presented by his confrontation with quantum mechanics.  God does play with dice, it seems.  The forces of the universe cannot be unified by field theories, only by theories of life. 

 

Lateral Timber

My living room is a forest of books, 
A story printed on every dusty page,  
Knowledge classified among the branches,  
Each holding a sanctuary of human thought. 

Sometimes when reading, I can hear them 

Speaking to me, the disembodied trees 

That were used to create such saintly tools, 

As if they’d sacrificed their sliced-up bodies 

For the betterment of a species they love, 

Whose endless vault of anecdotes, statistics, 

Dramas that ring through the centuries, piqued 

Their longevity, as if they were still standing.  

All trees sacrifice, it’s in their nature 

To be used, inhabited, eaten, dislodged, 

Seemingly comfortable with the pain 

That all the animals of the world inflict, 

Not just us, we restless pods that move 

Faster than they can detect.  One day, 

When the Earth grows warm and the plants 

Turn red, the soil churned in a varnished plastic, 

We’ll be the next ones swarmed by speed,  

Unconscious of the circuit in the sky, 

Content to serve a greater power sprouted 

From the seeds we'd planted at their feet.