In highschool I wrote a story about a middle-generation of stellar travelers. Their parents were born on earth and left as children, and the middle generation will not live long enough to see their destination. They live their entire lives on the ship and I wrote about them trying to find their place in everything. They will never know blue skies and warm beaches and open fields with warm breezes. They’ll never know birdsong or crickets or frogs. They’ll never hear the rain on the roof of a dreary day. I never could find the right way to end the story. I wanted it to be a happy ending, but I didn’t know how to do it.
I realize now that it was a book about me dealing with depression before I even knew it. Looking back at how blatant the projecting was, it’s obvious now. It wasn’t then.
In the story, the middle-generation people are lost. They’re apathetic. They’re just a placeholder. The only job they have is to keep the ship running, have kids, and die. As the middle generation of people began becoming adults, suicide rates were skyrocketing. Crime and drug rates were jumping. This generation was completely apathetic because they felt that they had no use.
In the story, a small group of people in the middle-generation create the Weather Project. They turn the ship into a terrarium. They make magnificent gardens and take the DNA of animals they took with them and recreate them and they make this cold, metal spaceship that they have to live their entire lives on into a home. They take what little they have and they break it and rearrange it into something beautiful. They take this radical idea and turn the ship into a wonderful jungle of trees and birds and sunshine.
And I realize now how much it reflects my state of mind as I transitioned from a child into an adult while dealing with depression. You always hear “it gets better” and “when you’re older things will be easier” and I was so sick of waiting for it to get better. I was in the middle-generation stage. And I was sick of it. I was so sick of waiting.
When I was in highschool I didn’t know how to end the story. I didn’t know how to have a happy ending. I didn’t have the life experience then to finish the story in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to make it better for these middle-generation characters.
But now that I’m older, I’m learning. That if you sit and wait for things to get better, it never will. You have to take your life and break it apart and rearrange it into something beautiful. You have to make the cold metal ship into the garden that you deserve. You have to make your own meaning. You have to plant your own garden.
You have to teach yourself that being happy is not a radical idea.
Russian Eastern Orthodox Church, Great Schema monks, the highest degree an orthodox monk can attain, displaying their iconic and highly symbolic black robes, also named after the degree.
On 15 March, 2014, Dutch friends, 21-year-old Kris Kremers and 22-year-old Lisanne Froon, arrived in Panama to study Spanish. The two girls decided they would take a hike on the 1st of April but they never returned. Ten weeks after they disappeared, locals discovered a backpack which belonged to the girls alongside a few skeletal remains which were confirmed as belonging to Kris and Lisanne.
A camera and cell phones were discovered inside the backpack and what was found on each, shrouded the case in mystery and speculation. There were 100+ photos taken on the camera - all of these photos were taken in a four hour span, ten days after their disappearance. The majority of these images were taken in the dark, possibly as if the girls were using the flash as a light source or using it in an attempt to scare something off. Their phone records show that they had attempted to call for help numerous times and had repeatedly turned their phones off and then on - possibly attempting to reserve battery. The first time they called for help was approximately two hours after the second photo shown above was taken and the last attempt was ten days after they disappeared.
There are many theories as to how the girls died ranging from them just being inexperienced hikers that suffered a terrible tragedy to kidnap and murder, but what happened to Kris and Lisanne in the Panama jungle, and how they perished, remains a terrifying mystery.
Some of you have never had a pestilence and plague sent into your house, into your bed, into your streams, into your streets, into your drink, into your bread, upon your cattle, on your sheep, upon your oxen in your field, into your dreams, into your sleep, until you break, until you yield and it really shows
