MSR: Less Talk, More Rokk! Please!

"A little less conversation, a little more action-action."

What are chapters of MSR like?

In the most recent chapter ("A Hair") our girl combs Rosalie's hair. And they make plans for cooking supper.

How ... how ... how ...

Well, how boring!

Why are you doing this to us, geophf?

MSR is a relationship fic. A chick fic, as it were.

Ya know. Two girls, in a cabin, talking.

There they are, in a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere, bathing, eating, sleeping, ... and. just. talking.

Well, let's compare MSR to life. Real life. Not "Heroes" or "V" or whatever's showing on the tube, but real life.

Is life filled with massive whatevers?

No, for the most part. For the vast majority of the day and of the year, life is just that, just living, just nothing, just everything.

And most people waste that opportunity, because that's all that life is, unless you're literally on the front-lines, like I was. You know, the front lines, where every decision I made affected the lives of four hundred men and women, every second of every day? And I wasn't even the head honcho, but one valve opened at the wrong time? One wrong order I give to my engineering team? Our ship goes down, and, being where we were: we all die.

And do you know what that was like? Boring. Tiring.

And sometimes, with M-16s and shotguns armed and free when I'd be on a boarding team, a little fun, a little scary.

What is your life like? Really. Does every decision you make potentially kill someone?

Yes, it does.

Because every decision you make involve somebody else, and every decision you make fundamentally reduces to: do I treat this person in front of me as 'thou' or do I treat them as 'it'?

And how is that?

Boring. Tiring. But also a little fun, and a little scary.

What's MSR like, right? Boring, right? Talk-talk-talk.

Why?

Because Bella and Rosalie, most of the time, treat each other as 'it' but, sometimes, they try to treat each other as 'thou.'

This last chapter there was a little bit of 'thou' going on, where Bella tries to understand Rosalie, and Rosalie tries to open up to Bella.

All in the context of combing hair after a bath then a conversation over the breakfast table.

Boring, isn't it?

Or is it boring? It sound more like it's 'life' to me, and living life? It's the only one we're given, so if it's boring, then, I gotta tell ya, that's your choice. I choose to allow myself to experience my life as an adventure, living it viscerally, in the eternal now, even if that now is a plain old boring conversation at the dinner table ... that will affect us and our relationships for the rest of our lives.

Oh, and p.s.: Martin Buber's I and Thou (Ich und du, actually) is, like, 200 pages (or hundreds of pages less than the latest HP or Twi fantasy (or fan-fic) that tells you nothing about life except how to escape from it). Read it. Now. Please! And rokk less, talk (and listen) more.

And, p.p.s. because I know you demanded it (and I listened): "Less Talk, More Rokk!" And, yes, MSR will also have that, too. Sigh.