Quoted By:
When you were a child, you never much imagined yourself as a soldier. You always imagined yourself as something of an <span class="mu-i">artist</span>. There is something pure about that. Bringing imagination to life and making your living on it; a skill that comes from the heart. Something a machine could never do. Well, until they started to train computers to do just that...
You work on your pot. The smooth and repetitive nature of the work is hypnotic. The pressing of your fingers against gently yielding, supply clay. It is like each motion you make, no matter how small, makes a huge impact into the final product, though none who see it will know them all.
No. Not product. Creation.
You aren't going to be making a masterpiece on your first go anyway- but that you already accept.
Perhaps you spoke too harshly to Zaj. It isn't so much that you think that there is no opportunity for people to succeed in your nation and among your people- it's just abstracted by so many layers of capitalist reality that there is no process of creation. There is no beginning, middle, and end; only the start and end of your shift. Nobody makes pots, even though decorative pots are sold, in Centralia. They work at a factory managing logistics and deciding sales targets. Or they work in the warehouse, or they work in retail and sell them. They don't <span class="mu-i">make</span> anything. Perhaps that is the reason for the estrangement. It isn't enough to be a part of a tiny cog in a giant corporate machine, at least for you. Every man should know what he is. That's your perfect world- the doctor, the technician, the farmer... the warrior. All of them <span class="mu-i">know</span> what they are. They know what they give to the world, and what the world gives them back. Perhaps it is too simple, but that is the way things should be. That is how you feel at this moment; making... this.
