Tiles on the table

In front of me

CMSEIR and a blank.

Command.

Motherhood.

Sex.

Elation.

Illegal.

Real.

And future possibilities.

I command. I am a commander.

I know all the rules.

A commander is me.

I think not.

The world drifts from my grip like the sands of time

Why grip harder?

Mothers are to be cherished.

We value struggle.

Whose struggle?

Sex is our tool.

Use it for good.

For whose good?

I can’t be so generous for long.

Elation requires its equal.

Nothing is comparable to the call of the world beyond

Who receives?

Care was for the poor.

This doesn’t pay.

I mustn’t contemplate it

Who pays its cost?

Why are we still here?

Not for love or hate

This world can’t accept either.

I just put the tiles down.

What is a tile?

To hold on.

Their struggle, our gain.

I wish I knew. Who does?

Not I. She.

Wooden. Solid. Easily lost. Easily forgotten.

Rarely found.

Now there are crimes on this table.

Only the future remains.

Artist’s Statement:

This poem contains many references to the themes of The Handmaid’s Tale. A few things to point out if the reader hasn’t yet noticed them: Readers will note that each of the middle stanzas is an exploration of one of the commander’s thoughts as he plays his opening move of scrabble against Offred. The last stanza refers to scrabble only in part. Don’t read too much into it. You might find something if you do.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT STATEMENT:

There was nothing to find. Unless, of course, you wanted there to be.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT:

The thing with art is that people see what they need to see. “‘I’m significant’, screamed the dust speck.” “Questions I know the answer to, I don’t need to ask, right?” -Jesus, Pat Buchanan, Kublai Khan, and/or King Joseph I of Spain.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT:

You don’t need this one. Nor the next. You already understand this poem as much as you’re going to, and you’re unhappy about it.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT:

Why are you like this?

REAL ARTIST’S STATEMENT BECAUSE THE OTHER ONES WEREN’T ACTUALLY ARTIST STATEMENTS THEY WERE JUST EXTENSIONS OF THE POEM, IN A SENSE: ALSO IF YOU’VE SEEN THREE IDENTICAL CATS LINGERING BY YOUR DOORWAY PLEASE CONTACT THEM AND TELL THEM YOU DON’T CONSENT TO BEING WATCHED.

Yeah, sorry about that. Those were not four random historical figures all the way back in “ARTIST’S STATEMENT STATEMENT STATEMENT”. They each have something to do with creation, sex, reproduction, and birth, in that order. PS. This website completely messed up the formatting

Title about nothing By Rafael Torok

I’ve had an interesting experience within this class. I wanted to care about this book, and I wanted to care about the class. But I soon realized that it didn’t matter whether I got an A or a B. It didn’t matter if I really cared about the book. So why try? It seemed like a fool’s errand. I don’t feel this way anymore. I realized that to look at it that way is foolish and cowardly. You can’t live a life if your philosophy is designed to remove you completely from any sort of meaningful connection to this world. This has become clearer than ever in my reading of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

There have been times in my life when I have felt similar to Moira, a character in the book. Specifically, I am referring to how she feels and acts during the section in which she plans an escape from the compound they were being housed in. Of course, it was not nearly to the same extent as she. However, the base desires were similar. I have been in a situation where I needed to do something disastrous for the long term in order to fulfill my needs in the short term. Sometimes, though, the thing I do, which is beneficial in the short term, is actually beneficial in the long term as well. It’s just bad in the medium term. For example, writing an essay at one in the morning. It’s good for my grade in the class, but it leaves me as an empty shell, unable to do anything useful the next day. What does it actually mean? Best case, I get an A in the class instead of a B. Whoop-dee-doo. What does that get me? A fraction of a percent higher chance of getting into any particular college. After that, nothing. I am reminded of the discussion Offred has with Moira on pages 89 and 90. When Moira first mentions that she’s got to escape, Offred immediately feels panic. She believes it will result in negative consequences. Moira doesn’t. She doesn’t really think it matters. Like Moira, I was tempted into thinking that this class doesn’t matter. I thought it was a boring waste of time. Similarly, it seems to me that Nihilism is an appropriate philosophy to look at the book through. Do the events of the book matter? Many would be drawn to answering no. Humans are leaky blobs of chemicals that are not conscious. Our brains are a collection of neurons tricking each other into doing math. Either everything with a brain is conscious, or nothing is. If you can’t tell, I’m on the latter side for the purposes of this paragraph. If no one on earth is conscious, then there is no reason to do anything. There is no suffering; suffering is an illusion made up by evolution to stop you from killing yourself. There is no pain; pain is a hoax made by your brain to stop you from getting yourself killed. I’ve always seen the appeal of nihilism. If embraced fully, it is the freest one can get. No responsibility, no morals, and no hope burdening you. However, I believe that it is a foolish way to look at the world. Its main philosophy rests upon a non-falsifiable axiom. We cannot prove whether or not human beings are conscious. If we assume they are not, nihilism becomes almost the default. If they are, then all of the other philosophies are still on the table. I know this is a logical fallacy, but I think we should choose the world where good people can exist. We should choose the world in which there is a reason to care.

My group’s project was themed to the Cheese Coalition vs. the Rodent Republic. They went to war because the rats were stealing cheese. https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/q2-visitorsguide/introduction