Omicron Blue A Coming of Age Story…a Love Story…an Action Story The philosophy of Frank Andres is placed in the five dimensions of Space, Time, and Energy. What will the world look like in sixty years?…. We shall put one chapter on this blog every three weeks… Join us…now!
OMICRON BLUE
by
Frank W. Andres
© Copyright, Frank W. Andres, 1983, 2012, 2015,.2019.
All Rights Reserved.
This version is available in digital form on our
website and on Amazon in a form that is very readable on digital devices.
This version has been updated and expanded.
This book is dedicated to Avalon.
Please visit us at our website… http://www.cftheater.info
Please give us your comments and ideas at Andres.Frank@Yahoo. com
1
Omicron Blue gazed across cold, rippled waters… slowly flashing to life. The ascending orb of unrelenting Light… inexorably, implacably inflamed soft dark pillows floating supremely above. Luxuriating in the chill of the last weeks of winter, the boy stood dripping with moisture, poised on a bluff surveying a panorama of Light and sound. The boy stood erect, exquisitely proportioned as Grecian statuary, a blending selected from an array of the best his species in its variety had to offer. The dark, red-brown hair rode the shoulders of this eighteen year old… as a primitive. There was power from the African, linearity from the Arabian, and a glint in his eye from the Urals…as well as the melange of genes acquired from Europe embellished by assaults from north and east from the Germanic and Slav. A flowing one-piece garment trimmed in gold fell to below the knee. The lips of the youth parted, a white smile appeared in his handsome face, expanding into a yell, which rushed down the slopes to the hills covered with clusters below, where the families lived in the embrace of Love Song Band.
The year… 2081 A.D., or 10 A.C. (After the Change). The soft hairs on the boy’s arms and face were in early maturation. Instinctively, the boy knew, somehow, that changes he could soon undergo, promised to surpass mere physical transformation. A shout resounded throughout the grass-covered mounts from the village below. It was his mother’s warning to hurry for school.
‘Oh, the gloom, the despair of an age, an age convulsed in tears. An age of blackness and futility. All that is seen, heard, and said, the perceptions and utterances of the condemned, reconciled to an inevitable disappointment. Each flicker of hope and happiness a momentary diversion from a curse from the past.
‘We were not always of this complexion. Once sunshine and daffodils were consumed and savored as secretions and children of a universe of energy… manifestations and proof of the forces, the movement, the infinite possibility, and yea, even the hope, inherent in Nature,… all symbolized by the Light. Is not the sun yet commanding imperiously, confidently from above? Is this not clue enough that this ubiquitous cloak with which we are encumbered is more a shroud of the mind, than of matter itself?
‘If mind did indeed create this sepulcher of a death-life sadness, then may not the mind be able to lead us thence from this shadow, into the dazzling brilliance, hope, and exuberance of which the universe is actually imbued. To reclaim and reestablish into their lives and age this hope, this joy,… this Light… now must be man and woman’s paramount endeavor.’
Silvia would blink up from the faded yellow scraps into the blinding spot above the horizon. Characteristically, she would have been reading for an hour when the hulking forms of hills around the cluster could finally be seen dimly through the one-way transparent membrane. Another half hour and she would not need the artificial light from the panels in the soft, rounded walls, which arched to become the ceiling. Silvia was a ‘lark,’ that is, one whose biorhythms favored early morning cerebral work. ‘Owls’ arose around noon to commence their labor. The most intense creative work for both was done in the evening and the night, respectively.
Golden Sun Tribe, of the Jupiter Nation… was dedicated to philosophical kinds of endeavors. Because of this, its members had voted to take on names and the dress of classical Greece and Rome, and its theology for males was based on that of ancient Egypt….well, upon the precepts of a faux version of that history that had emerged during the Renaissance…which had spawned many versions of what were to be called the Arcana…the best version of which the Tribe had selected from thousands that had been rendered. Many females in the tribe possessed their own theology based upon principles derived from a mystical shamanic past. Many of the tribes in the country were experimenting with new ways of doing things. Consequently, many were conceiving of new theologies that might be consistent with this new life. Golden Sun Tribe was fortunate to have many creative and extraordinarily intelligent people, like Steven Blue, who were coming up with extraordinary new ideas for how bands and tribes could be run and the theologies they might observe. The main theologies for males and females that Golden Sun Tribe had developed were exceptionally rich in power and promoted strong connection among members…These new ideas would be put to the test as the world would soon convulse in violence…a fight for preservation of this new way of life.
Many bands were located in the hills in every direction around the Bay….Generally, clusters of some six to a dozen families lived in structures with living areas contiguous and passageways continuous, which promoted constant interaction and creative collaboration. Golden Sun Tribe had the need for more independent work… thus, the residences were separate in a circle with communal areas in the center. The early afternoon was a time when individuals with different biorhythms could meet and confer… however, Golden Sun Tribe placed high value on their solitary moments. Love Song Band was located above where a tourist town once had existed along the Bay shore… immediately north of the Great Bridge… the embankments of which now were in ruins… located immediately north of the Old City… which now was broken by earthquakes and was largely under water. The New City was located in the backbone of higher elevations running down the Peninsula to the south. The New City was in a square, five miles on a side; it housed the machinery that manufactured many of the goods required by Jupiter Nation of which Love Song Band was a part… as well as goods exported to other nations and countries. The City was now fully automated with only a handful of people overseeing operations. The rest of Golden Sun Tribe was spread in bands of people to the north and west, covering the sequential levels of hills in the northern peninsula…nestled in the midst of the live oak around them. Human life in the Bay Area had pretty much abandoned the old flooded urban areas lying along the Bay shore below. The hills near the band rose one after another until they reached up, up to one mountain, which commanded majestically over the communities scattered below it… with the promise of peaceful, surging shores of ocean on the other side.
Silvia stood in the brisk morning air waiting for Omicron, who came in dripping wet from his marathon run.
‘Take a fast shower and eat your breakfast. You don’t want to be late,’ Silvia admonished Omicron as they moved towards the cluster.
Education in the United States was conducted individually by means of Cerebrum in the night these days supplemented by group work during the day, ‘larks’ in the morning, 9 a.m. to noon, ‘owls’, 2 to 5 p.m., and together, noon to 2 p.m. I-types and A-types worked together in all group work, learning how to use their respective mental strengths in the creative process. Actual instruction was conducted individually with Cerebrum in each student’s home cluster in the night…’ larks,’ 5 to 11 p.m. and ‘owls,’ 11 p.m.. to 5 a.m. In this way, all creative work was undertaken according to the tidal-like biorhythms in their brains. There were two ‘high’ times and two ‘low’ times for each group during each twenty-four hour period. This meant that all humans possessed high creative periods in the night. Sylvia was always remarking that this must mean that prehistoric man and woman were probably running around a lot in the dark. This did not seem to be the case for primitive people anyone knew about in recent history. However, the pattern was there. It must mean that at some early period, man and woman required the darkness of night for protection. They may have been partly scavengers, eating the remains of the kills of other animals. It would have been too dark to kill or gather anything themselves.
When children were young, lessons were like video games accessed on Cerebrum… which was the world’s memory and software… with learning occurring as part of interesting, action stories, with adults being close by to answer questions and help with work on written and artistic assignments. Group instruction and creativity was also stressed at pre-school ages, with children working together during their biorhythmic appropriate times under the supervision of one of the adults in the band, who took turns in this assignment. Group educational work even at an early age was creative interaction related to different aspects of the specific work that the adults in the bands were involved in. Individual instruction was comprehensive and included the entire curriculum.
‘I-type’ and ‘A-type’ referred to mental abilities in the right and left hemispheres of the brain, respectively. In each person one hemisphere is dominant and his or her creative abilities are enabled and constrained by the abilities and lack of abilities of his or her dominant hemisphere. ‘I’ refers to ‘inductive,’ ‘A’ refers to ‘analytical.’ These terms would not appear to be strictly opposites. It would appear that the terms ‘inductive’ and ‘deductive’ or ‘analytical’ and ‘synthetic’ would be better pairings. ‘Inductive’ was selected to refer to the abilities of the right hemisphere because induction is a process. It is the building up concepts and a synthesis in thought that is never completed. Thus, the abilities are characterized by process not by final product. The left hemisphere works deductively, gives form to concepts created by the right hemisphere…it utilizes deductive, that is, mathematical, analysis and is known by its final product, which is an ‘analysis.’ Both abilities are important to creative thought… thought that builds and refines tools…Inductive thought conceives of ideas… this conceptual thought process collects ideas into generalizations, hypotheses, syntheses, and theses…then analytical thought crystalizes these conceptions…it separates concepts into implications, deductions, clarifications, determinants, and explications…. The two abilities working together…render the final product…a ‘tool’…which can be used…to impact the external world…The most powerful tools…are Law. Thus, it takes both sides of the brain…in different people…to construct tools.
When people with different mental abilities work together, explosions in creative work are possible,… think of Francis Crick and James Watson, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, or Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy. The children of I-A couples are hybrids and often exhibit strong mental abilities with greater access to the weak hemisphere in their brains.
All living clusters in band and tribal areas were composed of membranes, complete with plant-like arteries and veins, synthesized artificially by genetic engineering techniques. They were comprised of several rounded, soft membranes, linked together, which were translucent and admitted light during the day and were illuminated inside with artificial light at night. In the dawn light, they were glowing capsules covering the hills… glowing half spheres that sheltered the organism called Homo within. Tables in the band’s educational area near the central eating center and clusters for group creative work were scattered among wild flowers and an occasional tree. All books, reference materials and research papers were provided by Cerebrum and were downloaded into hand held readers, which could hold trillions of books in their memories. Omicron reached the group table. Wolfgang Meer, Beta Firestar, and Cyrus Hillock were already busily examining the behavior of termites placed on a plastic sheet with sides that could not be scaled. They were watching intently, making observations concerning the grouping of termites on the sheet and the types of defenses they used against light and heat. Omicron had received high marks in the group work already for the sardonic parallels he had noted between tendencies in humans’ behavior and the behavior of these tiny sparks of life… which lived in darkness and ravished and impoverished the very timbers which housed and supported them. Nevertheless, unlike man and woman… these sparks could always find new timber and thus could survive on earth, whereas humans’ survival, at least until recently, had been extremely in doubt.
Excesses of the twentieth century had taken their toll. Arctic ice was gone. Two-thirds of the ice that had covered Antarctica was also missing. The ice sliding off the land had raised the oceans by some forty feet since the year 2000. Miles of structures and infrastructure around the Bay either were now standing rotting and crumbling or were now under water as levees that were built to protect these urban areas were now breached, left without repair…miles of fragmented breakwater jutting up in the Bay. Nuclear plants had been built quickly, after precaution in the past… and solar panels, with square miles of attendant energy storage, were now very efficient at producing power. Structures were made of plant membranes that utilized sunlight to live… as well as to light and warm the space within them as required. Mass transit was used routinely by all for destinations that walking could not reach. The salubrious transformations man and woman had made were world-wide in developed countries… thus, the deleterious impact of humans upon the planet had been stabilized precariously for the moment.
Wolfgang, an A-type, still used an old style name, as his parents were of conservative inclination and were in no hurry to sport titles of the new age. Wolfgang’s parents felt that the decision by Golden Sun Tribe to formulate new names to commemorate an age of tremendous promise and happiness was a reckless practice which would bury centuries of heritage and tradition. They did assume a new surname, however, which was taken, as prescribed, from the world of nature about them. They chose the German name for ‘sea’ to maintain a connection with their ancestry. They felt it was one thing to move past and improve upon the retrenchment and loss that had been experienced during ‘Dark’, mediaeval times, and the partial improvement of the ‘Upper Middle Ages’ as the subsequent Industrial Age was now called. It was quite another to cut oneself off entirely from one’s earthly origins.
‘Well, Omikrank. Been up singing this morning… or just sleeping? Guess you think others will do your work,’ Wolfgang began his relentless attempt to stir Omicron in some way.
At first Omicron ignored his companion’s words, hunched up his shoulders and peered down at one of the wiggling creatures scrambling over a neighbor, falling on its back, then attempting to regain its rigid, thread-thin feet. The terrarium was a plastic enclosure filled with wood…a thick cloth kept light out of the space when students were not conducting investigations. Then…’Wolfgaggle,…as you well know, these creatures exhibit very many traits similar to ours,’ Omicron said humorously in his best scientific manner, knowing he would get a rise out of Wolfgang. ‘It must give one pause to consider that these termites… even the microscopic paramecium, are similar to man in their basic physical structure and processes. Neurologically, for example, the human brain, the termite’s tiny kernel and the invisible single nerve spike of the paramecium are different for the most part only in terms of conglomeration of single cells. Much of man and woman’s behavior and what they experience as Truth is related to neurological wiring as simple as the ganglia of the earthworm. No wonder so much of our behavior in the aggregate is similar to other animals. And in some respects, many animals possess methods which are superior to man’s.
‘Notice how many in the colony have covered the queen with their bodies to protect her from changes in temperature. It is this type of concern for the whole of society that humans could develop if they merely thought a bit,’ he said.
Wolfgang shifted agitatedly on his seat at the table and scowled. ‘Think. Yes, Omicrinkle… man can think. Which is more than one can say for these wiggly pieces of dust. If we went around with as little thought as they, we would be extinct instantly. No, these few boys and many girls were born with all the answers inside. It is chance and DNA, not cognition, which is responsible for these creatures’ behavior.
‘Insects possess Life like man, it is true,’ he continued. ‘Each squirming speck is filled with DNA ancestral to ours, branched from the same limb a long time ago. We may be able to learn about certain forms of social behavior that are more efficient than others through the display of patterns of life hewn to perfection by the forces of evolution through the millennia. But don’t talk of volition, when you speak of termites.’
Omicron half-smiled at a response he had heard so often. Wolfgang, like so many biologists, was preoccupied with animals other than man and woman. In the previous century, biologists were able to do this because in their minds the lineage connecting man and animal was discontinuous. Even though scientists had now accepted the fact that man and woman are animals and that their studies needed to be placed upon a biological and physical base, still, the old ideas died hard, and scholarship was still in transition.
The separation in many biologists’ minds of man from beast… seemed to operate as a psychological security blanket of sorts, protecting them from what was accepted to be a scientific, if unsettling fact. After all, the delineation of the human genome and subsequent comparisons with those of the Great Apes had certified that humans were indeed…ninety-nine percent the same as a chimpanzee. Thus it was that many scientists still almost desperately concentrated exclusively upon other animals so that they would not have to confront the true enigma, the ultimate challenge… man and woman… Thus, it was the ‘social scientists’ like Omicron who were left to break the new ground, by dropping the traditional ways social scientists looked at humans and by becoming biologists themselves…and then there was the entire knotty question…of the I.
For various reasons, scientists now believed that each human being was ‘piloted’ by a consciousness embedded in a particle….an I-particle, as it was called…this I-particle was now thought to be a hydrogen ion…as it now appeared…amazingly…that each atom in the Cosmos possesses consciousness…and if an atom loses its electrons, that is, it becomes an ion…then the nucleus is ‘revealed’…its consciousness is ‘revealed’…and is able to interact with the external world….A hydrogen ion was able to lose its one electron the easiest…and traces of streams of hydrogen ions at work…can be seen way back towards the origins of Life…and captured in this modern age in the leaves of plants as photosynthesis..
Hydrogen and helium are the most abundant chemical substances in the universe…they compose the substance of every star…Hydrogen constitutes approximately 75 percent of all baryonic mass…helium comprises approximately 24 percent…all the heavier elements combined account for less than one percent of the observable mass in the universe. Thus most of the universe is composed of ions…whose consciousness…is ‘revealed’…Thus ninety-nine percent of the Cosmos…probably has the potential of interacting with, impacting, perhaps even communicating with… by means of consciousness…the fiery spheres around them…
Scientists in the past rigidly separated two ‘worlds’…the plant/animal world…and that of the cosmos…One was led blindingly by forces of biology and evolution…while the cosmos seems to adhere to majestic archetypal verities…such as Will, Love, Beauty, Law, Justice, Equality….Now with the discovery of the I-particle…scientists realize that consciousness is everywhere in the universe….a universe with consciousness is denoted with a captial ‘C’…’Cosmos’…and every idea connected to the dot of Cosmic consciousness within…in charge of each human being… is denoted with a capital letter…if behavior being described is worthy of such designation. The behavior of most animals is guided by instinct…and thus is the result of the forces of evolution…Only man and woman have largely escaped the clutches of instinct…and can…if exhorted in the proper manner…can adhere to the grander… most exalted concepts at their disposal…given to them by a messenger…a ‘revealed’ I...inside of their minds…from the heavens.
That is why it was so exciting to be a member of Golden Sun Tribe,…there was so much to think about…in this new world of science… Golden Sun Tribe concentrated on research regarding the Science of Everything. The true concept underlying this science was the unification of all the sciences under one methodology…Well, if the science of man and woman is placed on a biological base…if humans are indeed…some sort of exotic chimpanzee…then the social sciences… must be redone…placed on a biological base…with the result that in the end physical, biological, and social sciences would utilize the same methodology and language…which would allow each…to ‘talk’ to the other… work with the other….easily…One would be given one powerful biological, physical science that allows scientists to look at all the disciplines in the light of the others. It would also allow scientists to make greater progress in the research related to man and woman. And Goodness knows…these human sciences were of the upmost importance right now.
Wolfgang took an electronic notebook from his briefcase and began typing as he talked.
‘Well, Omicroniverous, so much for philosophical squabbles. You must shake your parts, and strive to accomplish something in three hours. We must have a list of observations and associations between ‘mite and man before we meet with the ‘owls’ at noon. Mrs. Quasar will be here then, too. We must work quickly to complete our work with its astonishing conclusions by then or she’ll send us all back to second grade.’
Mrs. Quasar was the band’s teacher. She was a member of one of the fifty education bands which were part of the University. Each childrens’ teacher had twenty bands under his or her wing and visited the ‘larks’ and ‘owls’ separately… and occasionally when they met together during the week. She oversaw the education of all children in the band like a school marm of old… however, her work was supplemented by the children’s parents, members in each band who were assigned to help the children each week, and children who mentored other children. Of course, most learning was conducted individually on Cerebrum with parents helping the very young. Cerebrum offered different approaches to teaching to choose from…one could learn concepts of physics in virtual exercises that were like video games in the past… or just simply…1 + 1 = 2. Mrs. Quasar mostly monitored group work on various projects. However, she had a good notion as to how each child was progressing. Supplemental help could be had if required. There were aides available at all times at the tribal level who could be contacted by means of Cerebrum or consulted face to face.
‘All right, Wolfgangus Kahn,’ bantered Omicron. ‘Your’re the boss. Couldn’t we just copy the brilliant ideas Beta and Cyrus have come up with and call it a day?’
Beta and Cyrus, who were both I- and A-types respectively… looked up and over at the mention of their names.
Cyrus smiled and fired back his reply.
‘Are you fellows going to play all day? Seems as if we do all the work and you do all the talking. Beta was strafing these poor creatures with the hot sun spot of her magnifying glass when I arrived and she’s been working constantly since.’
Cyrus thumped his notepad on a plastic wall for emphasis, sending termites flying for cover.
‘Now we have to make our generalizations concerning these things’ behavior and compare these white ants with people. Wolfgang has done a good job with the termites, and you, Omicron, have done a good job with the people. Now you must learn to work together arduously, without fussing or fighting, otherwise no progress will be made.’
‘Are you doing anything this weekend?’ Beta asked Omicron. She had had her eye on him for several years. They had had ‘moments’ together… however, Omicron seemed to be floating through his young life unaware that the Beta Firestar’s of the world would soon be upon him. He did not realize that the reason Beta was in the group and was working so hard… was to win praise from one she knew was her superior intellectually, but whom she felt she could ultimately maneuver into her clasp. In his condition of inertia and lethargy, Omicron was ripe to be plucked by a female whose head was not up in the clouds, and was exercising every ploy and device in her power to ensnare him.
Omicron mumbled something in reply, connoting unintentionally his complete indifference to her.
Undaunted, Beta submitted her proposal:…
‘How would you like to hike up to Sage Brush Meadows on Sunday? Your’re getting a bit paunchy there, the exertion will do you good.’
Omicron was not one to have his life ordered and planned before hand; therefore, he was vulnerable… at the mercy of those who were. Beta was not an objectionable creature, she possessed above average, I-type, intelligence and was reasonably attractive. However, Omicron’s ‘inner eye,’ the subconscious parts of his brain, was focused upon another,.. one he secretly worshiped, but felt unable, unworthy to approach. She seemed to be a goddess in his mind, with hair of gold, one of the exceptional students in his age group in Jupiter Nation. Her father was a University professor who was in charge of research that Love Song Band under Steve’s leadership was conducting for the President of the United States. In this new world, families often worked together… as the nation was a family as much as the band and tribe were. So it was that for six months now, Aura Jasmine had accompanied her father and mother to Love Song Band once a week when they conferred with Steve and his right hand man, Rex Meadowlark and his wife, Dorothea. Sometimes she brought her best male friend Gemstone along for company.
Yes, she was like a goddess. However, Omicron in his present state was behaving as if it was his lot to be paired with a girl like Beta. A goddess was worthy only of a god. And he was far from being a god, although elders in the band knew that there was no better candidate for such a post… if such a post could ever exist in this mundane world… given his many abilities and potentialities.
Omicron was home by two-thirty. For two hours and a half, he usually relaxed, composing music in the band’s creative area or rested in his room. At five, the families gathered for dinner. Although individuals were on different schedules and although meals could be dispensed in the band’s eating area or in the homes at any time, the families in the band gathered once a day, as the tribe did once a week, in a more or less artificial way, in order to foster Loving relationships. The males throughout Jupiter Nation were organized in a hierarchical ‘reach to the heavens’ of Will…with the most able leaders at the top…which opposed forces of evil in the external world…Women were in ‘circles’ of Love… in whose embrace the activities of the bands, tribes, and nation were undertaken.
Steven Blue in a crimson robe sat with Silvia at the head table and presided over the fifty some band members who were there. Omicron’s brother, Jason, an A-type, was tardy as usual as his congeniality had produced a galaxy of friends in other bands in which he continually revolved. The meal had been prepared under the watchful eye of Lavina Marigold, an East Indian, who was mistress of the kitchen. Food was prepared automatically, for the most part… automatically with a minimum of intervention from Lavina’s staff and conveyed by moving surfaces from the central kitchen to the dining area nearby, in response to orders previously inputted.
‘Well, men,’ said Steve, addressing his own sons. ‘Having a productive day?’
‘Yes,’ replied Jason, then ‘Several of the guys are going boating this weekend, I thought I might, too.’
‘Boating is one of the few pleasures bequeathed to us from the “old days,”’ said Sylvia, whose words were always colored by a historian’s interests and perspective.
‘And guess what,’ Jason continued. ‘Omi’s got a girl friend. He’s going up to Sage Brush Meadows this weekend,…with Beta Firestar… Everyone is talking about it.’
Omicron glared at his brother. He felt six eyes riveted upon him, and he blushed nervously.
‘Beta Firestar,’ Sylvia said with hidden concern. ‘Just how serious is this, Omicron?’
‘I don’t know…she asked and I said., yes. She’s all right,…you know,’ he replied helplessly.
‘She is so assertive. I don’t know. I wish you would spend more time with your father.’
‘Omicron is almost a man,’ Steve spoke, napkin brushed across his mouth, then grasped again to his lap. ‘He has been given all that we can give. His life soon will be his to command.’
It was true that Omicron was no longer a child. Yet Steve’s words were not to be construed as merely protective of Omicron’s rights as a young adult. They also reminded Omicron of an entire world of thoughts and ideals that would make him think more profoundly about the weekend jaunt than Sylvia’s furrowed brow would be able to do. Omicron shifted uneasily. He really desired to take a hold of his life… however, events seemed to have a way of sweeping over him. He was a leaf pushed before the torrent.
After dinner, Omicron went to the band’s music room. The room was rather large in the band’s ten-room central creative cluster. In the room was a grand piano, a recording system with overlaying capability, guitars, and a drum set. A large one-way “window” in the wall, which was composed of cells just as the rest of the cluster was, was almost completely blue as it looked out upon the Bay. The dying sun ignited a few floating clouds in flames of orange, then red, until they were extinguished in puffs of smoky white. The water was iridescent against the dark forms of the land.
Omicron’s fingers sank into the keys of the piano slowly, without thought at first. Music issued forth in a solemn sacred hymn of sublime peace and joy. The music swelled, then ebbed. Then the fingers moved more quickly in an almost automatic improvisational way in a free form jazz…but not jazz…it was ‘classical music’…that is, it was the music Bach played spontaneously and his wife would write the notes down as fast as she could…and these pieces were some of the best…that Bach would write…In this way Omicron played for almost twenty minutes and… then all was still. This first flurry of music was a release for Omicron which rendered a blissful relaxing of the muscles and mind in preparation for harder work ahead. Yes, in Bach’s time such music was good in itself…but it was no longer the 1600s…More was required of a composer nowadays… Sometimes in these unrestricted surges of music he noticed new relationships between chords and between notes, but otherwise they were of little worth as part of an effort to write the best music that could be composed in this modern day… He had read all sorts of stuff…about developing new ideas in music…he just had not had the concentration to try things new..and perhaps even contribute to the theory itself. .He had read that I-types like him could hum…and every time there would be a new melody…and melodies were scarce in classical music…Tchaikovsky obviously must have known the secret of humming …every phrase of music he wrote…was filled with melody…And then there were chords…yes, chords…with the help of the concept of the circle of fifths…Omicron could move towards creating a music theory that would offer one million possible chords…well, that is what theorists were saying…were hoping for…in the act of composing a piece….He just had not spent enough time thinking things through…he realized that overlapping triads was important…and moving, utilizing notes from all the scales rapidly…like being in all the keys at once…but it was all so confusing…he just didn’t know what to do next….
Besides he had so much work to do…what with school and all…and in addition… he had music to write for theatrical productions…He didn’t really have enough time to think about music theory…Omicron wrote his music in collaboration with members of several of the bands that created entertainment for the weekly tribal gatherings. He had to coordinate this work with the scientific research he was conducting for his own community. Omicron had written five songs for a musical, but was satisfied with neither the music or the words. The songs seemed to possess no significance, no pathos, no depth of feeling. Still it seemed as if the pressure was constantly on him to produce…so he had to continue…just doing the best he could…
The script for the musical was entitled ‘The Bird and the Beaver.’ The heroine in the play was an artist who had fallen in love with a common laborer. It was her intention to spend her time in the forest painting life as ‘she saw it.’ Her lover derided her effort, saying, ‘How can you paint life in a forest? How can you paint life unless you have lived it? And of what use is painting to the pursuits of life anyway?’ However, their love was intense and the roughly hewn block of man took the delicate, sensitive lady into his mundane and physical life. In this way was the blithe spirit of the woods ultimately destroyed by the man of might.
This plot generated little enthusiasm for Omicron as he pounded forth his strains before a darkened panorama, illuminated now only by a golden moon. After a half hour, Jason opened the door to the room and wound his way through sets of drums, three guitars, a computer in its case, past the large oak worktable, to the piano. The reflection of the moon on shimmering water had taken Omicron’s thoughts far away from his work.
‘I’m sorry to bother you when you’re in the throes of impassioned composition,’ Jason said. ‘But Uncle Jonathan wants to know if you’ll be going to the Creative Center Saturday.’
Omicron stared blankly at his brother. A slight smile curled his lip as he thought of Jonathan Proudhawk, of his grim yet fascinating stories about life before the Change, and of his complete enrapture and exuberance for life in this new age. Jonathan was not an uncle by blood, he was instead an uncle ‘of the blood,’ the blood of the Love Song Band. Jonathan would say how two-thirds of his life had been squandered in meaningless and harsh work in the cities. Now he could work all day and all night, reveling in the creative, delightful life which was now possible.
‘I think I’ll mag over to the City a bit while you clothes horses slave at the fashion mall in the Creative Center. I’m interested in the City. There is so much machinery in one place and all is controlled by so few people.’
By ‘mag’ Omicron meant the electromagnetic trains which traveled in tubes at speeds up to 500 miles per hour… transporting people within the nation and delivering goods manufactured in the City to the communities.
‘Yeh, I guess so,’ Jason said, who was not particularly interested in machinery and goods. ‘But you’d better be back at the Center before noon. You know how Uncle Jonathan looks forward to being with us on these jaunts.’
‘I’ll be there,’ said Omicron, who was tired of being nagged by his older brother. However, he knew that such nagging was near an end. Jason was now finishing his preliminary medical training in the community via Cerebrum and would be going to New York next year for four years of intensive training. He was twenty years old and would be a full-fledged doctor by the age of twenty-four. In the previous century, a young person would have been almost thirty before he or she had completed the same training. However, the modern doctor was different from his earlier counterpart in that although he would work in an office in the Creative Center, he would always retain an affiliation with a creative band and could always shift his attention toward creative activity if the demands of medicine became too great for his psyche to bear. A primary requirement for being a doctor nowadays was a history of concern and Love for fellow human beings. Gone were the days when doctors were considered to be gods, who too often graciously deigned to bestow curt words and cursive scribbling upon forty patients an hour in a mad scramble for money. Now the doctor was healer of the whole body. The body was viewed to be an organism, not a machine. Psychological needs were administered to as well as physical needs…preventative medicine was emphasized strongly…it was recognized that a Cosmic harmony between mind and body was required for robust, vigorous health….in addition, he understood that each cell in a person’s body…possessed a couple of I-particles of its own.
Because medicine was concerned with the well-being of the individual and the community, it was associated with the world of the body and the Law of Love, to the precepts of Wild Mercy…to use the terminology of the theology of Golden Sun Tribe. Consistent with this, most doctors now…were women.
Omicron continued to work on the musical while Jason called up his assignments for the day on the interface with Cerebrum in the room. It was 10:30 when they walked slowly back to the cluster. Jason had six hard hours of study utilizing Cerebrum before him as he went to his room. Omicron had difficulty falling asleep as a vision of his dream girl remained before him. The anticipation of his being with her the next day kept him alert for hours …as he stared into the darkness.