E11. "Rainbow People Of The Glittering Glade" - Does society have the right to tell you you’re worthless?
“Does society have the right to tell you you’re worthless?”
Kolby, Jeremy, and Jessica discuss the ethics in the short story, “Rainbow People Of The Glittering Glade” by David Shultz.
Transcript (By: Transcriptions Fast)
Rainbow People of the Glittering Glade
Kolby: Okay. And welcome back to episode, I believe, 11 now.
Jessica: 11.
Kolby: Of After Dinner Conversation short stories for long discussions. I am your co-host Kolby with…
Jeremy: Jeremy.
Jessica: Jessica.
Kolby: And Jeremy is wearing a shirt from where we are today.
Jeremy: From La Gattara.
Kolby: From La Gattara. Yeah, where all these cats, except for this one who is like a permanent resident, are available for...
Jeremy: For adoption.
Kolby: For adoption. Yes. Or you can come and just pay some money to hang out with them. After Dinner Conversation is a podcast as well as a website as well as Amazon e-books including the book we’re talking about today, “The Rainbow People of the Glittering Glade.”
Kolby: And so, we’ll...
Jeremy: By.
Kolby: By… that’s a great question Jeremy. Hello kitty, you’re sitting on my...
Jeremy: It’s in here, David Shultz.
Kolby: Thank you. The cat’s sitting on my thing there, which you’re allowed too. Keep sitting kitten. Right. And so, you can download those, read those, you ideally should read them beforehand, before listening to the podcast.
Jessica: I’d say this one in particular.
Jeremy: In particular, yes.
Jessica: It’s a lengthy piece but totally worth it. It is a fantastic story.
Kolby: Yeah.
Jessica: And we’re going to be, I think, diving deep into this one about the world that was created and so I think you really need to read before you…
Kolby: And I would say for me, we’ve had a lot of stories that I’ve liked, certainly I’ve liked the discussions of all of the stories and all the questions asked. This is one of the stories where I just really loved it. Like, I read it and I wanted to talk to people about it and I wanted to ask questions about it and we were trying to like hold off on our conversation before we started taping so we didn’t talk about it beforehand. Yeah, I feel like this sets a new bar probably for some of the best submissions we’ve gotten.
Jeremy: It’s really well written. It’s an interesting topic. Really well development of characters.
Jessica: The world building is really good.
Kolby: And it’s longer which is usually hard to keep up that sort of level of interest for that, you know? It’s easy to do like a 3-page story that’s one question. This is a 15-page story that asks 15 questions. It’s just really solid. And so, I think that I drew the short straw this time?
Jessica: You did.
Kolby: Okay, so, I am not as good as Jeremy or Jessica at...
Jessica: I’m not good.
Kolby: …at the summaries, but I will try and summarize. So, basically, we’re in a sort of fictional world where it maybe has like other stuff going on. It’s probably other worldly but it’s intentionally vague about it. And three people on behalf of the kingdom are sent to the Shifting Desert to find a rumored community that is violating the social norms of society and that they’re practicing slavery, and I think there’s human sacrifices, and just, you know, cats and dogs living together. And so, they wander through the desert to find this hidden place in kind of a Lewis and Clark exploration kind of thing. It makes it even more interesting in that because of the plate tectonics of where they are, which is why you kind of think it’s probably not on earth, there are minor plate tectonics. And so, even if you’re walking in a straight line, the ground underneath you literally can slowly be moving you off course because the tectonics are shifting all the time. And so, it’s particularly hard to find this community. The three of them get to the community. In the process, I think two of them become inured, one from a sprained ankle or something.
Jessica: Broken arm.
Jeremy: And the other bit by a snake.
Kolby: By a venomous snake, so they sort of stumble into the community on their last leg with not much, and running out of water and they’re just in bad shape.
Jessica: One is like a warrior.
Kolby: Yeah.
Jessica: One is like a religious person.
Kolby: Right. I feel like we’re talking about Dungeons and Dragons classes, right? And one is a dwarf. No.
Jessica: One is a cleric, yea.
Jeremy: One is the government envoy, the scholar.
Jessica: The scholar.
Jeremy: The warrior.
Jessica: And the religious person, the cleric.
Kolby: The religious person, scholar, and warrior.
Jessica: Yes.
Kolby: And so, one of the things that’s interesting is sort of is the teaser in it is as they get closer to the community, they start to see statues out in the desert.
Jessica: Pure white.
Kolby: Pure white. Like marble looking like statues that are exact replicas of people. And then as they get closer to the community, the statues are moving but only in a repetitive pattern. So, it’s just like one short motion. Like, kind of like “Chuck-e-Cheese”, right? Just one sort of thing over and over again.
Jessica: Like an automaton or something.
Kolby: Yeah. But they can’t talk to them or communicate with them and they not as marbleized. They have an ashen look to them. And this is all of course very freaky to them. When they stumble into the community, the community takes him in and you learn the story of what’s going on. And in essence…
Jessica: Oh, and, sorry.
Kolby: Yeah, go ahead.
Jessica: I was going to say, they heal them.
Kolby: Oh, that’s right. They heal them of course. Way better healing abilities than they have.
Jeremy: Than the cleric has.
Jessica: Than the cleric has. And the cleric is the only that’s not injured. The warrior and the scholar are the ones that are injured. And as they are healing, they learn more about this community.
Kolby: Right, because they can’t leave immediately because it takes 3-4 days or a week for their sort of wounds to heal up, so they can’t just immediately return. So, one of the things they find out in sort of their research to bring back to the kingdom is that being in the community is a double-edged sort of thing. One- you get all of these sorts of great knowledge and great things and you live in this sort of idyllic community in the desert that is, you know, they don’t know war and they don’t really know famine and they all have goals and purpose. But, you will slowly stone-ify, for lack of a better term, and you will become one of the people they saw when they were coming in. And as you turn to stone, you will want to, through whatever process this curse has, makes you want to isolate yourself from the community. So, the people that are just outside the community are the ones who are more recently sort of stone-afying and they can still move a little bit. And the ones that are farther out from the community are the ones who have totally turned to stone and are now essentially dead, which I believe, what are they called? They said…
Jeremy: They’re called “the drull”
Kolby: “The Drull”, D-R-U-L-L is how they spell it. And so, you immediately have this immediate process, immediately starts within days unless you are accepted by the community. And the way the community…
Jeremy: Well, it’s explained to them that...
Kolby: They have to have value, right?
Jeremy: It’s the because of the magic in the area. And I think it’s even presented as magic, that this is the cause of this. This is the power that heals you but it also turns you to stone.
Jessica: Right, yeah. It’s inevitable if you don’t have...
Kolby: If you don’t go through this process. And so, the only, everyone in the community can be a part of this process to not turn to stone, but they have to be, sort of, selected or voted on by a panel of elders.
Jeremy: By the community. Judged valid.
Kolby: Yeah, who judge valid. And all three people that wanted in are judged valid.
Jeremy: Because of their credibility.
Jessica: Judged worthy.
Kolby: The scholar because of his scholarship. The warrior because of his athletic prowess. And the cleric because of their devotion to God, even though it’s not their God, totally fine. And so, they take them down into the inner chamber where there is a giant floating crystal that is so perfect. It’s like a God figure crystal. And then they, for lack of a better term…
Jeremy: They get a tattoo out of one…
Kolby: They kill one of the drulls.
Jessica: It sucks up the essence of the drull into the crystal. Yeah. And then…
Kolby: And then becomes ink.
Jessica: Becomes like a tattoo machine.
Kolby: And they tattoo it on their forehead.
Jeremy: On their forehead is the one that keeps them alive.
Jessica: It’s a seal.
Kolby: Right. And that keeps them from ever stone-ifying. And the scholar and the warrior choose to take the serum or the magic thing, and the religious person because of their religious belief, chooses not to.
Jessica: I would not say we are clear why she chooses not to.
Kolby: That’s true.
Jessica: You say it’s because of religious beliefs. That’s never articulated.
Jeremy: It’s sort of articulated.
Kolby: Maybe I just assumed it.
Jessica: I disagree that it’s articulated. Show me in the story.
Kolby: Jeremy’s going to start sorting through. And so, then they heal up, and you go back and you realize that the story that you’re reading is the letter that the emissary, the main sort of emissary person, the scholar, has given to the warrior to return to the king. Because the scholar has chosen to go native, and live in the community. The warrior has chosen to go back and use some of that technology to help them in war.
Jessica: So, I want to clarify that point. So, after the seal, they also can get additional tattoos that will enable them to become better warriors or better whatever…
Kolby: Allows them to run faster.
Jessica: Run faster.
Kolby: Go longer without water
Jessica: It was almost like photosynthesis. You lived off of the rays of the sun.
Kolby: It also sounds complicated; this is why we’re saying this is one of the stories you should definitely read.
Jessica: And then the price is that you have to go find one the drulls and bring it back in order to get these additional powers.
Kolby: And one of the things they talked about, ideally you should be the one to pick the drull.
Jessica: Correct.
Kolby: And I think, to me, the implication was you shouldn’t pick randomly. It should somehow to be related to the meaning to the tattoo that you’re doing, or meaning to you.
Jeremy: Meaning to you or the skill that you want.
Kolby: Yeah, some personal attachment to you. And the drull gets the sort of life sucked out and it gets turned into, its blood or whatever, gets turned into more tattooing. And you get the tattoo from the essence of the drull and give you the ability to run faster or jump higher or whatever.
Jessica: So, I cut you off, and then at the end of the story, it’s the letter going back to the kingdom, the scholar has gone native, the warrior’s going back, and the cleric is a drull now.
Kolby: Has become a stone, or is almost to the process, or pretty close to the process. And so, you’re essentially, you’re reading so much, you don’t know at the beginning, so much, but you’re reading the story from the emissary to the king about why, here’s what I saw and, by the way, I’m not coming home.
Jessica: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He’s totally. Yeah.
Jeremy: Okay, so we’re both right.
Kolby: Oh, let’s hear it.
Jeremy: Okay, Syrena refused the seal. Syrena’s the cleric. There’s little that I can say of her reasons for doing so, which were expressed not in terms of logical rationales, but rather emotional aversion and visceral distaste. So, we see his view of what her reasons are, is an emotional reason not to do it. I attribute her attitude to her strength of her devotion to her faith. It is to her credit that she resolved, even in the face of such beauty, to abstain from what had been offered. This is a rare and commendable ability, perhaps one that is honed by fasting in case chastity, the regular refusal of our natural inclinations.
Jesica: Okay.
Kolby: So, it doesn’t outright say it but, you’re kind of like, “Ehhh.”
Jessica: Well, he thinks it’s religious.
Jeremy: It’s his impression.
Kolby: But it might not be.
Jessica: But it was an emotional and visceral reaction.
Kolby: So, can I just talk briefly one of the things this writer does and I thought, “Wow. Like, I’ve never read that.” He does it a couple of times where he doesn’t do like a “he said- she said- he said- she said”. Instead he does something like, “We had a conversation, while I don’t remember everything, here’s what I took away from it.” And it’s sort of like he’s paraphrasing the conversation for you, which once you realize it’s a letter, makes perfect sense that it wouldn’t be a “he said- she said”, it’s not the way you write letters and stuff the way you remember stuff. I thought that was a really apt tool.
Jessica: That was an apt tool. I also think it’s a great tool to indicate perhaps bias. Right? Like, this is what I took away from a conversation, “Oh, I’m not going to see that conversation? Okay. This is your take on the conversation which is just the good bits that you think.”
Jeremy: It comes back to the idea of the unreliable narrator. We have to take his word on it. It’s his story; his version of what happened. Now, they can talk to the warrior who returns to corroborate.
Kolby: I think the warrior for sure would’ve had a different take on it, right?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Kolby: When I read this, I kept making me thinking of like reading some of the Lewis and Clark primary sources. Where it’s like, I know you’re trying to be faithful to what you saw and I get that you’re trying but I also get that you’ve never…
Jessica: Never seen this before, experienced this.
Kolby: Right. So, I appreciate the effort but I’m not, you know…
Jeremy: Exactly.
Kolby: Jeremy…?
Jeremy: I really like this story.
Kolby: Yeah, you also liked it a lot. We’re unanimous on this one.
Jeremy: Yea, it’s a great story. I love the way it’s presented, the way the culture is presented, the way you’ve given these 3 different views of what’s going on and three different options.
Kolby: Choose your own adventure book.
Jeremy: In some ways.
Kolby: I would read this story 2 more times from the other two characters perspectives.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Jessica: Yeah.
Jeremy: Just to see what they’re take on it is it would be great. If you’re listening...
(laughter)
Kolby: If you’re listening writer… please!
Jessica: Get a little Canterbury Tales aspect, right? 3 pilgrims, different takes.
Jeremy: What’s the Kurasawa movie with the 4 versions…?
Kolby: So, you go Kurasawa and I was going to go with that one where they the car wreck, where the 4 different people all come to the car wreck and leave the same.
Jeremy: They based it off the other one.
Kolby: They based it off of that? Whatever. Jeremy, I’m curious, so there are some ethics. I mean, obviously we’re gushing over the writing because it’s gushing worthy, but there are some ethics issues.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Kolby: What did you think of the Drull? As you’re reading it and thinking about it, what was your opinion about…?
Jeremy: Well, it’s interesting because it’s the society that decides whether or not you’re worth of getting this tattoo.
Kolby: I should also mention one other thing too, you don’t start to stone-ify unless you’ve hit puberty. So, it’s not like a baby has to prove its worthiness. You’ve got like…
Jeremy: It’s a little like Logan’s Run in that way.
Kolby: You’ve got 14 years to know what’s coming, and to like mentally get yourself to be like, “Look, I’ve got to up my game. I got to prove myself”, because then that age is when it starts to happen. So, you’re choosing at some level the effort you’re putting in to creating your worthiness.
Jeremy: Well, that’s a real pressure. It’s not just like, you get into a good college or not.
Kolby: You want to talk about a final exam?
Jessica: Right.
Kolby: That way is worse than the AIMS test.
Jeremy: Yeah, it is an ethical conundrum because, again, it’s the society that’s determining your worthiness. So it isn’t, you know, shifting morals and shifting values. How do you know? It’s not like there’s an SAT you have to pass.
Kolby: What if you focus on a good mile time and it turns out you don’t need milers anymore?
Jeremy: Exactly.
(laughter)
Jessica: Right.
Kolby: But you get the impression that they’re not, because they were really free to give it to the three people that came in…
Jessica: But, but, but… those are three outsiders that can go report back and get people to come and kill them. It’s three. And they already, I mean, I’m going to assume that they know that this outside Kingdom has already dubbed them human sacrifice, slavery, right? They already have a bad PR rap, of course they’re going to be like, “Here you go! Free stuff for you!”
(laughter)
Jessica: It’s the vendor who buys you dinner. Right? It’s not, I would say, it’s very biased that they…
Kolby: So, you think they’re being shown the best parts of the community?
Jessica: Absolutely.
Kolby: I didn’t take it that way at all.
Jeremy: I think somebody even brings that up.
Kolby: The warrior does. The warrior totally is suspect of all of their motivations. The emissary guy is like, “No, no, let’s just be cool.”
Jessica: “Yeah, let’s just be cool, I dig it here.”
Kolby: “Be cool honey.”
(laughter)
Kolby: So, one of the things that I really loved about this was, I was struck with the question of why would you be a drull? Why wouldn’t you try, if you know it’s coming, and it doesn’t sound like there’s a limited number of slots or whatever. Why would you choose that? And then it occurred to me, everyone, everyone around me in society chooses that every day. Every person who gets up and goes to work and comes home and watches TV and like…
Jeremy: It’s a cumulation of all those things, it’s how you’re raised, it’s all of your decisions compound on previous decisions.
Kolby: I thought one of the really great things about this story is that it created a more in your face example of the thing that people in a real life do every day. Like, I feel like there’s a lot of drulls walking among us. People who’s like, the biggest thing they’re waiting for is to pay off their mortgage.
Jeremy: Or not even that. Just making next weeks rent.
Kolby: Right. And it’s just complete lake of belief that you can craft yourself or your society around you to your hopes.
Jessica: So, I totally disagree.
Kolby: Good. That makes better discussions.
Jessica: So, I got from the discussion questions at the end that you would go this way.
Kolby: Right, because I write the discussion questions.
Jessica: Yes. You write the discussion questions at the end. So, I think it is a reflection of society, but I think it’s this wonderful reflection of society of how…
Kolby: Oh, I know where you’re going. How we judge people’s value?
Jessica: Who gets to pick what’s worthy? Women’s work is never worthy. Never. It’s something that we never consider to be part of, do you work or do you stay at home? Right? Guess what, staying at home is fricken work! It’s not, especially if you have kids. It’s very very ablest, “Oh, you’re able to work, you’re worthy is determined by your productivity and success based on the productivity and success that I want based as the judger.”
Kolby: I’m judging you based on my values of what I think has value.
Jessica: Absolutely.
Kolby: I have a counter point for this.
Jessica: Sure.
Kolby: I would agree with everything you just said, except what the drulls are doing.
Jessica: Okay, tell me…
Kolby: Because before you’re totally return to stone, I took their repeat action as the thing that they mistakenly thought mattered that they couldn’t let go of. Whether that’s gardening or prayer or whatever, the thing where they’re like, “No, no, no I have to keep the floor mopped because that has value.” So, you sort of solidify into that value-less action until you truly are gone.
Jessica: So, here’s my disagreement on that. If I knew, if I grew up here, sorry Jeremy we are not letting you talk.
Jeremy: That is fine.
Jessica: If I grew up in this society and I knew that the society would not determine what I am doing as adding value. Perhaps I’m a woman and they don’t think that women’s work is valuable. Or perhaps I do something, I’m a writer and they think art sucks, so I have a choice because I know there is a slim…
Kolby: So closer to the community we see you writing over and over and over again because you’ve been pushed out because they don’t value writers.
Jessica: They don’t value writers, or they don’t value artists, they don’t whatever. I get a choice at some point…
Kolby: I think you’re about to change my mind.
Jessica: … at either get to try to have a slim hope of redemption so my drall action will be, whatever, maybe will redeem me, because they do. That’s the thing about the story, they maybe pick somebody to redeem. The woman that show’s them around…
Jeremy: Has been redeemed.
Jessica: Has been an advocate of redemption. I either do an action that they maybe they’ll find redemptive. I’ll do gardening, I’ll hold up the bridge, I’ll hold up the aquaduct that collapsed, which happens in the story, or I do what will make me happy because that’s what I’m going to do until the end of time because the chance of redemption is so slim.
Kolby: I think that’s why the story is so interesting is I think that is the choice that the cleric makes.
Jessica: Right. She does what she loves.
Kolby: The cleric says, “Look, I understand that you don’t think what I’m doing has value but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. So, I know I’m not going to heal fast enough to get out of here and I know that I’m not going to change the core of who I am to impose, to take on your value system, so I’m willing to sort of die with my value system….
Jessica: …doing what I love.
Kolby: Doing what I love, knowing that you don’t value it.” And in that sense the cleric is an admirable character.
Jessica: I think the drull are admirable. It just depends…
Kolby: On why they’re drull.
Jessica: Well, and …
Kolby: If there’s just a guy playing Playstation eating Cheetos.
(laugher)
Jessica: That’s doing what he loves. It’s his life to choose that.
Kolby: Why can you force me to not eat Cheetos and play PS4?
Jessica: And what I will say is this idea that this worthiness on the backs of others is the part that kills me.
Kolby: That’s what I think creates a great moral ambiguity in the story thought right?
Jessica: I don’t find it. I think it’s immoral. I don’t think there’s any ambiguity.
Kolby: They think they’re essentially feeding on the dead, but of course to the dead they don’t think that.
Jeremy: And what about the class structure that is creating the values that they’re judging on in terms of they need drull to get additional skills so wouldn’t you gain the system to create more drull so that you have…
Jessica: Absolutely.
Kolby: You got more to feed on.
Jessica: There can never be this society without the drull. They can never be this American society without the people who pick up garbage, with the people who work on Amazon, they’re drull life, making it week-to-week paying their rent, we can’t have this society without…
Kolby: Unless we feed off of them.
Jessica: So, we feed off of them. I think this is a great mirror of what society is.
Kolby: Wow, you might have changed my mind actually.
Jessica: I love that.
Kolby: No, I’m totally fine to have my mind change, that’s why I want to have these conversations.
Jessica: Just not with me.
(laughter)
Kolby: No, I mean, you’re wrong but you changed my mind. I’m perfectly allowed to hold 2 contradictor things of you simultaneously.
Jessica: Absolutely.
Kolby: Jeremy, what was your take on the choices that each of the three characters made? Were you respectful of all 3 or did you stack them in order of preference?
Jeremy: No, I think it’s presented very well that they make the choices that are suitable to them.
Kolby: Suitable to their trait so to speak.
Jeremy: To their traits. So, the cleric absolutely makes the choice not to do this because it’s morally offensive to her to do this and that she has such faith in her religion, presumably.
Kolby: And sees value in it even if it is valueless to others.
Jeremy: Exactly. And the other two, yeah perfectly, it makes sense they would make these decisions.
Kolby: What about the fact… so, Jessica has a problem with the society and that they sort of feed and level up on others, but on some level the emissary, I don’t know why I keep calling him that but that’s what I’m going to call him…
Jeremy: Yeah, he’s the emissary.
Kolby: He’s been chosen to do the thing that Jessica has a problem with, but you don’t have a problem with his doing it?
Jeremy: Well, I think it makes sense to him. And they’re gaming him so they he writes this letter.
Kolby: A lot of moral relativism going on.
Jeremy: Absolutely. It doesn’t mean he’s right or wrong.
Kolby: It just means he’s different.
Jeremy: It’s the right decision for him.
Jessica: So, one of the things that I thought about at the end of the story, because I do have problems with this society, but we’ve all met me, I’m not the cleric, right?
(laughter)
Kolby: Didn’t you just in the last episode say, “Your husband had a 70% chance of living, so I abandoned him?”
(laughter)
Jessica: Yep!
(laughter)
Kolby: Maybe we don’t let your daughter listen to that episode.
Jessica: Let’s not let her listen to that.
Jeremy: But Alex, it’s okay?
Jessica: Alex, I’m so sorry again. You know I love you.
Kolby: We know you would’ve swum out for your daughter.
Jessica: I would absolutely swim out for my daughter. But, so, we know I’m not the cleric, I’m not going to self-sacrifice and I’m not going to write and not live.
Kolby: Which one of these three characters are you?
Jessica: I’m not any of these characters. But the questions is, if I’m in this party and they offer you the seal and you know the choice is really I either become a stone statue doing what I love, or I get the seal and have a chance of escaping this place and warning other people.
Kolby: Come back with the nukes.
Jessica: What do you do? Do you get the seal knowing that somebody dies on behalf of you but then the hope is that you would save more people? And the shifting sands, the chance of findings those people again is very hard.
Kolby: I didn’t even, until you brought it up, I didn’t take the drull as being alive. In my mind it wasn’t feeding off the living, it was feeding off the dead. Because in my own bias, I think which you’ve slowly changed my mind on, I feel like it’s okay to feed off the dead because they’ve already chosen to die.
Jessica: Well, and that society has set up that. Everybody in that society believes that. You can’t live day to day believing… I mean, we believe that every day. We believe that people that clean you houses make that choice, we believe that the people that can’t find jobs makes that choice.
Jeremy: It’s another good metaphor more A-type people who look down on anybody else below them who aren’t like absolute achievers. Why would you not be the best person you could absolutely be every day?
Kolby: It’s like, “Maybe I just want to be happy? And this makes me happy.” I struggle with those people, I can’t lie.
Jessica: I’m a definitely a Type- A person, we all know me, but my therapist was very much like, “You keep climbing a career ladder, do you want to keep climbing?” I was like, “Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that. I’m just looking for the next...”
Jeremy: This is what you do.
Kolby: I just saw a mountain and I climb mountains.
Jessica: Right, that’s exactly it. So it is, that is very much people look down. Kolby and I had this conversation where we always want to make people’s businesses as efficient as possible. We want to make restaurants work better. What if we don’t care? What if we just let people live their lives and they don’t want the most efficient restaurant and want just like this experience?
Kolby: It reminds me of the story…
Jeremy: It works well enough.
Kolby: I’m happy. Like, why do… am I going to be happier if I have more business?
Jeremy: If I’m making 10% more money?
Jessica: And making enough money to do what I love and what I love is sitting playing PlayStation on the couch.
Kolby: Yeah, and I get that you judge me, but I’m happy.
Jessica: Right.
Kolby: It reminds me years ago when I was working at a job that was a little bit of a drull job, I just admit…
Jessica: A drull job or a droll job?
(laughter)
Kolby: I think that’s part of the reason why the name is chosen too. Is I was talking to a co-worker about, “I need to do more with my life”. And he’s said, “You know, you remind me of the guy who went to the Amazon and saw the guys hanging out on the side playing soccer and pulling fish out of the water once in a while to eat. And he goes, ‘No, no, no, you’re doing it all wrong. You need to set up nets and you need a factory, and you need to process it, you need to sell it, and you need to have higher margins and you need to get into a global market’ And the guys said, ‘Why?’ He’s like, ‘So you can sit on the side of the river and play soccer with your friends all day and fish’. And they’re like, ‘Yeah’”.
Jessica: Yeah
Kolby: Yeah.
Jessica: That’s a great…
Kolby: It’s a great story, right? And I feel like that’s the case, where it’s like you chase this thing. I’ll tell you one thing I’m glad the story left out, but I definitely thought about it, is it kind of made it clear that if you were 13 or 14 and started to enter puberty and you got a problem with this, I don’t know why you would have a problem with it because you grew up in a culture and you wouldn’t know any better, the shifting sand and all the trauma would make it almost impossible to escape. There is no ability for somebody born into the community to opt out of the community.
Jessica: And it’s impossible for those 3 people.
Kolby: You can’t leave home a lot in this case.
Jessica: These 3 people can’t escape. Do you either turn into a drull..
Jeremy: … or you accept the…
Jessica: … or you accept the emblem and then leave? And it’s interesting, I think that this letter comes back and it’s like, “No, no, no, they don’t do human sacrifice”; they absolutely do.
Kolby: I did not think they did until you sort of talked about it. Now I get it better.
Jessica: And so, you didn’t answer my question, do you get the seal and try to warn people, or do you not take the seal because you know you’re taking somebody’s life?
Kolby: I totally get the seal.
Jessica: Seal.
Jeremy: Yeah, definitely
Kolby: I understand that you think your life has value. I don’t think your life has value.
Jessica: Oh my god.
Kolby: And therefore, if I’m being honest, I would like to be less horrible, but I’m not. I look at someone like Elon Musk and I think he’s worth more.
Jessica: Oh, I definitely don’t. The guys a jerk.
Kolby: But here’s the thing, I don’t care that he’s a jerk, I care that he’s pushing us as a world slightly, just a hair beyond where we were yesterday.
Jessica: Okay, but for the record, Elon Musk is one of the drull. I am sacrificing that dude to get the seal Just telling you. Even though there’s a chance of redemption for him, and he could go change the world, I’m first.
Kolby: I feel like 99% of society lives off the sort of invention of 1%. And I would put you in that 1%...
Jessica: Aww, that’s so sweet.
Jeremy: But he’s gaming the system so you write a good letter.
Kolby: But a lot of people will never even have the smallest bit of adding to whether it’s cellphones or space exploration or understand of psychology or medicine. They really, you know, do data entry for a living. And I’m just like, I want to be a better human being…. This was one of our conversations like 5 episodes ago, I want to be more empathetic to that person, but I’m perfectly fine being like, “Yeah, no, you’re food.”
Jeremy: But we need people to do data entry. We need a lot of people to do that job.
Jessica: And I think it’s one of those things, I don’t care about the data entry or the invention part. For me it’s the skew of you think the furthering of humanity…
Kolby: You’re overlaying your values on someone else’s choices.
Jessica: … is the goal, and I think the experience of life is the goal.
Kolby: Right. And that’s just a different in perspective that the society is now overlaid on people making this choice. I look at Switzerland and I’m like, “Yea, 300 years of peace and prosperity and you gave us the cuckoo clock.”
(laughter)
Kolby: I don’t think that’s impressive.
Jessica: Don’t they also do really good chocolate?
Kolby: Yeah, they do. And they do really good…
Jessica: Neutrality?
Kolby: Neutrality. They do…
Jeremy: Ehhh, that’s questionable.
Jessica: That’s true.
Kolby: Unethical banking.
Jessica: They do a lot of unethical banking. And I think it’s one of those things, just to be totally clear…
Kolby: But that’s my overlay of values on society.
Jessica: And I will say, I think, I’m a humanist, I think society, I think humans, we’re all very amazing people, but at the end of the day, I do think it’s so big and it’s really about the experience. For me, it’s a lot of the Carl Sagan of the living in that moment and being part of it.
Jeremy: Absolutely.
Kolby: I’m going to call a hair bit of bullshit on this.
Jessica: Oh, tell me.
Kolby: You just said earlier, “I see a mountain and I have to climb it”
Jessica: Yes.
Kolby: So what you’re saying is, is you understand that you overlay your values on your choices in ways it overemphasizes the value of achievement and sort of ticking boxes and goal-setting and moving the ball forward, and yet you’re also saying, but what I really want to do is fish by the river?
Jessica: So, society devalues women’s work, women also devalue women’s work. So, I have been raised in a society where success is… so of course I’m a box checker, of course I love that sense of achievement.
Kolby: I feel like both sides of the scale are sitting one each side of me here.
Jeremy: Yeah, pretty much.
Kolby: Like, Jeremy I feel like you in some ways you are the guys, and I don’t mean this as an insult, I don’t mean this as an insult at all, but I feel like you want to be a good father, you want to be a good friend, you want to be a good…
Jeremy: …fish by the river.
Kolby: … fish by the river kind of guy. And that, and you’re genuinely happy and it generally makes you feel good and Jessica being, kind of the other end of the spectrum. And I definitely understand your point, there is a place for both of those kinds of people.
Jessica: Yes, sure.
Jeremy: Thanks.
(laughter)
Kolby: Good news…
Jessica: Good news.
Kolby: Today we don’t eat you.
Jessica: We don’t eat you today. Just so you know, Kolby is counting down the days if you get a little ashy.
Kolby: If I’m peckish, it’s going to be bad for you. Well, we ran a little bit long on this one, not surprisingly because it was amazing. If you write something, if you’re going to submit something, you should read this story.
Jessica: Yeah. “Rainbow People of the Glittering Glade”, which is on Afterdinnerconversation.com.
Kolby: It is. And also, on Amazon.
Jeremy: And everywhere you get podcasts.
Kolby: And just so that people know that this is the kind of thing we’re looking for; I think I’ll actually link this to the submission page.
Jessica: I think that’d be great.
Kolby: So that they can be like, “Oh, let me read a sample of the kind of thing you’re looking for.” Maybe shorter, if longer is struggling for you, Jeremy doesn’t like to stay up late reading.
Jeremy: No, it just was a busy day yesterday.
Kolby: I think this is exactly what the website was created for and I was very happy to get it. So, thank you person’s who’s name I don’t remember.
Jessica: With our author let’s give him some credit.
Kolby: Seriously, he’s a rockstar.
Jeremy: David Shultz.
Kolby: David Shults, who by the way, I think this is amazing has degrees in cognitive science, philosophy, law, and education because why not?
Jessica: That guy? Checking boxes.
Kolby: He’s checking boxes. Which is ironic that he writes his story then.
Jessica: Well, maybe because he’s like me and learned.
Kolby: Maybe, he learned-ed it.
Jessica: Kolby.
Kolby: I’m sorry. You are listening to After Dinner Conversation short stories for long conversations. You’ve been joined by myself, and Jessica and Jeremy. And we had a great time talking about “Rainbow People of the Glittering Glade”. If you had a good time listening to us, please “like” or “subscribe.” Please come to La Gattara, get a cat, they are available for adoption, you can come pay $10 and just hang out with them if you’re in Tempe, Arizona. Additionally, go to Amazon and you can download any of the books, this one plus probably 15 or 20-30 other ones. I don’t know, there’s a lot of them now. Candidly not all of them are as good as this one, but many of them are very, very good and they certainly will encourage you to have really good conversations with your friends or with your kids, if you want to have a literally conversation with your family, gasp- who does that? About things that matter outside of like, Game of Thrones.
Jessica: Also, good ethical and moral dilemmas.
Jeremy: That’s a good thing to talk about too.
Kolby: There are actually. I drink and I know things.
Jessica: I drink and I know things.
Kolby: Okay. Thank you. Bye.