# Mother of Hydrogen (part 1 of 11)

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [148], part 1 of 11. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (Text), 2012-11 (from the career record), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009), before the ledgers step (Ethereum launch, 2015).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Contains Harappa, the target design for mass relocation, expressed as fiction.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Mother of Hydrogen (2012): Novel drawing on the shelter, meditation and pandemic work.
  - In a Page (2010): A series of one-page papers, mostly from spring 2010, each putting one argument on a single sheet. (suggested by machine)
  - The New Economy: out of money, out of time, but not out of ideas (2010): One-page paper: the richest fifth are eating the planet, so the next economy has to be at peace with other... (suggested by machine)
  - The Big Deal (2011): Four-essay blog series arguing that government has hit hard limits, so civil society, working with... (suggested by machine)
  - A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine (2014): His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe eight machines everyone on earth should... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - fiction draws on: The work that fed the fiction.
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum.
  - RMI to spiral: Resource economics, from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the spiral economy. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - goat rodeo to warlords: The goat rodeo idea, from a 2010 blog post to a 2011 one-page paper to the opening chapter of Warlords, Inc. (2015). (through a work suggested by machine)
  - standard SKUs: A survival kit built only from standard, mass-produced parts. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Ideas whose earliest source in this archive is this one: Harappa
- Ideas developed here: Hexayurt
- Topics: Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — peter, harry, cadets (71%); Fiction-led: Mother of Hydrogen — harry, yevish, president (17%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Harappa (14 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); Mother of Hydrogen (7 here; 5 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); real assets (2 here; 7 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); camping gear (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); early warning (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); NaNoWriMo (1 here; 2 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); refugees (7 here; 84 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 3 undated); social order (1 here; 3 sources in all, earliest dated 2012); India (7 here; 88 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); citizens (5 here; 63 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 3 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): real assets; Harappa; social order; camping gear; early warning
- Importance: core-text score 1.00 (1.00 is the top), number 1 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [108] [User:Vinay Gupta/The Unplugged (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [224] [The Unplugged: The Videos - Shareable (2010)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/224.md): The Unplugged (2006): the earlier statement of the same long-term vision
  - [822] [Mother of Hydrogen, a novel (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/822.md): same career work: Mother of Hydrogen
  - [235] [The Perimeter: Mythos as Science Fiction and other works (2024)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/235.md): close in content (cosine 0.92)
- On the same works, just before: [725] [Vinay Gupta l Plausible utopias | Meaning 2012 (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/725.md); [395] Open Data Ireland 25 October inaugeral meeting (2012); [396] [Transparency International launch event, Dublin (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/396.md)
- On the same works, just after: [391] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (4) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/391.md); [393] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2) (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/393.md); [394] [Green Foundation Ireland - The Future of Europe (2012)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/394.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Mother of Hydrogen, document, 2012-11, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [148], https://guptaoption.com/texts/148.md.

## Passages, part 1 of 11
[passage 1](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) M O T H E R o f H Y D R O G E N Mother of Hydrogen: A Novel ======================== ======================== ===== Introduction ===== ======================== ======================== As noted at the end, I wrote this 60K word document in six days: NaNoWriMo became NaNoWriWk by... accident. It's not a normal novel. There are some places where things happen that I did not have the resources to write, so a period of several years are skipped over in a day. Trust me, stuff happens, but I can tell you later! Much later! The setting is The Future, but also In People's Heads. There may be some confusion as to which is which, because we do not have the advantage of advanced typography. Finally, I will spelling correct in the morning. I'm tired, and dyslexic. Vinay Gupta (@leashless) Cloughjordan, Ireland 23rd to 28th of November, 2012 ==================== ==================== ===== book one ===== ==================== ==================== Harry sat on the dock, feet dangling just above the green water. His sandals sat by his left hand, damp and sandy. The mountains reflected in the water were always covered in snow at the top, but the slopes were grey or green or white depending on the time of year. In the summer, the trails were deliciously shadowed and leafy. Overhead, the lake monitor flitted about, making sure nobody was drowning. A fist-sized lump of plastic and rainbow-iridescent solar panels, covered in tiny eyes, it had been designed to be vaguely reminiscent of a giant dragonfly, without being a simple copy. Just enough like nature not to be a dull machine, but not a crude imitation. This was fairly typical of machines, nothing exceptional, but Harry had a vague ambition to be a robot designer one day, and had looked up the specifications for the lake monitor and quizzed the maintainence guy about the device in some detail one summer two years ago when it had gone down with a mechanical fault. Harry didn't really understand how the monitor helped people - it was too small to stop anybody drowning - but the device was simple enough. Ever-watchful, if somebody was in trouble, it simply phoned appointed people in the schloss to come and help. Harry did not think much about the similarity between the lake monitor and similar, less naturally-styled devices at school, rolling down the corridoors picking up trash, encouraging children to classes, occasionally making malfeasance known to teachers. It wasn't hard to mess around with the school robots, any seven year old could estimate line-of-sight for the cat-sized devices, trick their simple brains into blaming the wrong kid for somebody being pushed over, confuse them in a stampede of legs and tip them over, and similar games. Robots were dull, everyday objects to Harry. But the imitation of life, of the living dragonflys, was a little touch of magic. Harry watched the monitor hovering over some children splashing about on the shore with buckets, their mother lost in her book a few yards

[passage 2](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) confuse them in a stampede of legs and tip them over, and similar games. Robots were dull, everyday objects to Harry. But the imitation of life, of the living dragonflys, was a little touch of magic. Harry watched the monitor hovering over some children splashing about on the shore with buckets, their mother lost in her book a few yards distant. Harry was trying to meditate. Fitfully, he aligned breath with the slow swing of his feet, trying to will the water to come alive in his sight, as it had the first time that Uncle Peter had shown him how to coordinate breath-and-hands. Peter called it chigung, said that it predated kung fu, but was actually much more important. There wasn't much to do in the summer, when Harry's father worked from here in the mountains over the school holidays, and mother and Harry's two sisters went to the music school most days. It wasn't boring, but it lacked the intensity of summer in the city, with sports and parties and the constant rush of visitors, arrivals and departures, and the gentle chaos of the city's streets. Colorado was not New York, but this was how the summer usually was. Peter said that if you did the breathing just right, you lived forever. Harry quizzed him at the time "forever like it seems forever? you don't mean forever!" and Peter laughed, enigmatic, and said "well, perhaps it just seems like forever" and messed up Harry's hair in feigned annoyance. Harry sliped gently into trance for a few moments, watching his foot swing back and forth over the water, exhaling it forwards, inhaling it backwards, and the water was perfect crystal, completely static, and the air was simply its pressure against Harry's nostrils, nothing more. Hearing sharpened and, for a moment, Harry was aware of the sound of everything all around him as a single, static thing, frozen in time, all heard as a single note. He shivered, breaking the spell. He didn't really know what Peter was getting at, but as Father said, "Peter spent a long time figuring out the hidden angles of the obvious, and you should look over his shoulder at least a couple of times." He'd watched Peter in the mornings, slowly dancing with sticks, fluid rotation, body and the weapons moving in the same or opposite directions, tucked turns and surprising snap kicks, all in semi-slow motion. It seemed like an odd preoccupation for a 50 year old man, but trying to imitate Peter with a stick soon revealed how much the older man knew about sticks and steps and bodies. Father said that Peter was the mystic of the family, "a wizard, but there aren't really wizards like in the stories - he's as close as people really get, though." Harry dimly understood that Peter was a good few years older than Father, and that Grandfather had died when they were both in their teens, and Papa (his father) not that long after

[passage 3](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) Peter was the mystic of the family, "a wizard, but there aren't really wizards like in the stories - he's as close as people really get, though." Harry dimly understood that Peter was a good few years older than Father, and that Grandfather had died when they were both in their teens, and Papa (his father) not that long after that, and that Father still looked up to Peter, even though Peter was by most standards quite poor, a green camper van packed with strange odds-and-ends of electronics and camping gear and clay and a wheel and a mandolin and, some years, a dog or two riding saddles or... "look over his shoulder, but for god's sake don't go off on the whole trip with him, son!" ===== Peter eased through the form. Deeply familiar, he was not quite in tune with his actions, not quite fully focussed. In the edges of his vision, the after-image of the sticks carried the slight sheen in the air of energy, but he was aware of going through the motions, too aware of his own awareness to really sink into the practice. A little coffee in the morning helped shake off the evening's torpor, but left the slightly-too-heightened awareness until noon, rounding off the edges of the practice in just the wrong way. Peter didn't care, right now it was as much for muscles as for soul, and he's spent enough years living on rice and vegetables and barleycup to consider a disgraceful old age of caffeine and red wine a fair hash. Slowly, always slowly, trying to unlearn the martial instincts from his thirties, the desire to snap the sticks like whips, drive through the forms on angular momentum and imagined opponents broken bones. To just let the stick be a stick, the elbow prescribing the arc, the knee supporting. Peter wonders what he'll be working on in ten years, if he keeps up the practice, or if one day he'll return to the sword form, finally ready to put in the time to move from wood to steel, from the curved sabre to the perfection of the straight sword. Perhaps in time. ===== Gregory closes the door and pulls the blinds. Countersurveilance nodes report, in the small green indcator under the clock, that there are no detectable surveilance devices in the area, no tight pulsed laser beams on the glass, no complex antennas catching a thread of occasional white noise bursts across many frequencies. Gregory loads up half a dozen windows with live feeds from African operations, bits of drone imagery highlighting where the map is not the territory, where things are behind schedule, where there's been a shooting or a few cases of cholera. The coffee grows cold as he starts to integrate the general picture. It's not a bad day, by any means. The State Department's humanitarian operations have been fairly well organized this year, unlike the debacles of summer two years ago when a series of personnel changes

[passage 4](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) are behind schedule, where there's been a shooting or a few cases of cholera. The coffee grows cold as he starts to integrate the general picture. It's not a bad day, by any means. The State Department's humanitarian operations have been fairly well organized this year, unlike the debacles of summer two years ago when a series of personnel changes left them short-handed at the start of a civil war and balls were dropped which made the media. The gear in the field is getting old. They stuck with an older, cheaper platform rather than upgrading to the semi-sentient area-of-interest platforms because of the difficulty of verifying the objectivity of the algorithms. Unlike a news organization, State wants to know what's really happening, including all the boring stuff, the places where nothing ever seems to happen because everything is fine, the trucks arrive and depart on schedule, the grain sacks are full and correct in number. Systems evolved for realtime news pay attention to vocal stress, to rapid movement, to any sign of conflict or strong emotion. They tend to bias the feed towards drama, and that turns out to make it surprisingly difficult to understand how humanitarian operations are really going. So Gregory has to piece together substantial parts of "everything is fine" by reviewing summarized logs, rather than having an auto-editor piece it together for him. Once in a few weeks he'll catch something really important - missed hospital reports of infectious disease that somebody round filed thinking it was taken care of when actually there were similar cases popping up in the field, or a little statistical anomaly which means somebody's embezzling on the supply chain. But mostly the job is very simple in intent: make sure that there isn't a clusterfuck ongoing. Ground teams periodically go completely off the rails due to clashes of personality or sexual tension or religious conversion or some other human factor, and HQ can't take the chance of having the press get hold of it before accountability has been ensured. It's a lot of waiting around for people to be idiots, frankly, thinks Gregory. But it keeps the family in blue jeans and tacos, and once in a while, Gregory actually saves some lives. It's a contrast from the old days, when the machinery on the other end of the link weighed metric tons and charged around on rockets kicking doors. Gregory's shoulders tense like iron as old memories surface, kids running away from the machines as they go from patrol to engagement, fire flying. Unconsciously he massages the edge of his left hand, which used to occasionally chafe against a crack in a glove housing after a long day flying a front line engagement unit. The movement always meant shift was over. Gregory gets up, stretches, and walks out on to the porch to find Peter and have lunch. They're going to have to talk about the boy soon, and about whether or not he's going to carry on Peter's

[passage 5](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) crack in a glove housing after a long day flying a front line engagement unit. The movement always meant shift was over. Gregory gets up, stretches, and walks out on to the porch to find Peter and have lunch. They're going to have to talk about the boy soon, and about whether or not he's going to carry on Peter's work or not. Gregory doesn't doubt the kid is up to scrach, and he's curious in all the wrong ways, but the family business is not simple, and Peter's emotional attachments to his nephew may make it a poor fit. But Gregory doesn't want the kid to grow up not knowing what's out there, locked in the rat race like every other victim, unaware of the shifts and tides of the world. He doesn't want to lose his son to the illusions of the world, or to his brother's mysticism. Given the choice, though, Peter's way is better than what Gregory feels he can offer. Better to live the dream, than to be disillusioned. Gregory doesn't doubt that Peter would do fine with somebody else's kid, but they're family. Can he stay clear enough to do the job right, or will avuncular affection breed bad habits? Peter's sitting on a stump, checking messges. "Lunch?" "Yeah, let me phone the kid. Is Helen joining us?" Gregory thinks about how to broach the subject. "No, she's having lunch with the girls." There's a long pause. They both know. They always know, sometimes one a little before the other, it's implicit, intuitive. Perhaps more than normal between brothers. "Peter, why don't you take Harry for a couple of months next summer. I think he'd like to know more about your life, about the stuff you've done, and I want his eyes opened before school, before national service. I want him to have options." Peter pauses. He knows there's only a few minutes before the kid is back, and it'll all be sandwiches and lemonade and some riveting tale of fishes. "Greg, I'd love to, but you know that if he follows me, he's going to have a hell of a life. You know how it's always been with me - right place, wrong time, no excuses - years of hell in India, years of trying to put the pieces together. Do you really think he wants that? He might stay on the straight path yet." It's forumlaic, Peter thinks. They both know the outcome. "Yes, he might, but I've seen him out of the corner of my eye, watching animals. Fades right into the trees. He's born to it, we carry the blood, and I know you'd keep him out of trouble Peter." Harry arrives, sandals in hand, socks stuffed in his shirt pocket. To both men he looks young, they see him as he was at seven or eight, a time of pure childlike innocence. He's older than that now, but right now, they only see the child. If he knows the

[passage 6](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) and I know you'd keep him out of trouble Peter." Harry arrives, sandals in hand, socks stuffed in his shirt pocket. To both men he looks young, they see him as he was at seven or eight, a time of pure childlike innocence. He's older than that now, but right now, they only see the child. If he knows the weight of what's being discussed, he doesn't show it. He saunters into the kitchen, opens the fridge and examines options. Peter nods. "You know what they do to kids in the army these days, Greg. I guess we give him a fighting chance of being his own man." It's settled. Hopefully they'll never get caught. They go inside, and eat sandwiches, and ponder the war watching the kid grow up in front of their eyes. ===== At fifteen, all of the boys and an increasingly large percentage of girls (it's voluntary) take a year long cadet training. They stay in their high schools, but over the course of a year adopt uniform, drills, salutes, discipline, a chain of command, rank-and-insignia (randomly rotated) and, towards the end of the year, combat drills. The combat drills use a very similar technology to common games systems - goggles, direct electronic stimulation of the vestibular system to produce balance and orientation cues and complex spatial audio. Civilian systems seldom bother with gloves, and the cadet systems have only very basic tactile interfaces - pressure, grip, vibration - no force feedback. It saves on maintainence, force feedback systems require a ton of caliberation, and a software error can mangle a finger or even an entire hand on a real military rig. They simulate both kind of combat - in-your-skin and in a robot body. Although the prediction has been for years that eventually jockeys like Gregory will comprise 100% of the US Armed Forces, there are too many jobs which simply require somebody to stand there with a node checking that items are physically present (military gear can't use locator nodes) or talking to people about what's happening - field synethesis of information with full context forces the brain to work faster and make better decisions than remote sensor feedback. You just can't fool the limbic system into understanding the gut feel of the situation without smell and body language. The locals, rightly enough, refuse to treat even fairly humanoid combat robots as if they were people. You can't really win hearts and minds from within a half ton steel carcass even if it's got a very advanced face of a man and a melodious voice. It's still a tank in the minds of ordinary people, something the brass - never being allowed near the non-combatant populations for fear that just a few of them are switchers - never seem to understand. You just can't command loyalty or change belief systems in a robot. So main combat is still 40% robots, hovering seas of drones and lesser nodes, little insects covered in sensors and passive

[passage 7](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) people, something the brass - never being allowed near the non-combatant populations for fear that just a few of them are switchers - never seem to understand. You just can't command loyalty or change belief systems in a robot. So main combat is still 40% robots, hovering seas of drones and lesser nodes, little insects covered in sensors and passive energy capture systems, and occasionally orbital sensor and gun platforms. But the weak link has always been the men, always been our side versus theirs. The enemy, whoever it happens to be, never plays nice and lines up in big, fat formations right in front of a line of armour. The increasingly blurry line between civilians and combatants, the Geneva-excluded "switcher" populations who will hit targets of opportunity while bowing and scraping towards State for funds to rebuild their shattered lives, leave only one option: an army that's all tooth, and no tail. America knows, without a doubt, that this may be a fight to the finish, a war without end, and America is armed, girded and warded, to do what has to be done. ===== The kid is 15. He's young for his cohort, so he won't actually start cadet year until he's almost 16. It's summertime again. They've fallen into the routine now - first few weeks of the summer the family spends alone, Helen and the girls fussing over the boy until it's time for Peter to arrive. Peter spends a few days hiking with the whole family in the mountains near the summer house, then the men take off on their own for a week or so, then Peter and Harry leave for the next six weeks. Peter is training Harry in the hope that his personality will be strong enough and refined enough to survive the shock of the conditioning processes of the cadet year. If anybody understood the family's intention - to produce a child capable of dissent, of doing something against the National Interest as defined by the chain of command, even in uniform - to produce a man capable of disobeying direct orders, in fact - they'd all be prosecuted. Gregory understands all too well what the stakes are. His generation's experience of war was heavily shaped by soft propaganda, a lifetime of exposure to a culture which was meant to make it very clear what right and wrong were, and where real power, goodness and wholesome values resided: with the National Interest. But what they do to the kids these days goes far beyond that. They make sure, without a doubt, that their minds totally internalize the chain of command, the concept of the higher authority embodied in the America and its values, and above all the need to be parts of a smoothly functioning war machine, something capable of maintaining all that's wholesome and sacred in integrity and power. ===== Peter and Gregory sit by a smoky, damp camp fire. A little drizzle in the afternoon dampened the fuel they

[passage 8](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) concept of the higher authority embodied in the America and its values, and above all the need to be parts of a smoothly functioning war machine, something capable of maintaining all that's wholesome and sacred in integrity and power. ===== Peter and Gregory sit by a smoky, damp camp fire. A little drizzle in the afternoon dampened the fuel they gathered from the forest fall and the fire in the early dusk is anaemic. Harry's fussing with it, grown taller and stronger than either man can really see. Wanting a little space, they send him down to the stream to get water. "Last chance, Peter." Gregory is concerned. They've taken a decision, to break the kid out of the system before he even knows what it is. To train him to think for himself, so that a generation of draft-oriented psychologists won't make him believe the National Lies. Everybody goes through it, and it's producing a society of slaves. "Greg, it's not a fast or certain process. In the old days, you know, they were raised this way from 8 or 9, usually with their grandfather holding the keys. It's not as if we really know how to do this faster, or in this world. He's got the summer, six weeks, and he's kept up the work at home, right?" Gregory knows, full well, that the kid has worked his ass off. He doesn't, can't understand what the old men are plotting, but he's been raised with the stories of Peter and Gregory's grandfather, a Native American medicine man who fell in love with a white woman, settled in Kansas and drove a pickup truck. Papa had been every inch an ordinary American, he'd given up whatever Native identity he had when he married into white culture, suppressed it almost willfully with a sixpack a weekend and a love of baseball. All American. But to his sons, and a little less to his daughers, he taught the secret history: imperalism, genocide, COINTELPRO, the rape of nature, and the death of the world. He'd lived through the nuclear age, and watched world peace slip out of our fingers over and over again. He passed this to his son Frank, and then in turn to Peter and Gregory, and now they were passing it again to Harry. The seed understanding that "this is very wrong" raises the question "but what is right?" And for a man to seek the answer to that question, to make up his own mind, is a crime. "He's not ready yet, Greg, but he's going to be in good shape by the end of the summer, I think." The air hangs heavy. Peter says the unthinkable. "I think he's going to go all the way, you know. I think he's going to have to. His generation are under so much pressure, and they need somebody to break through. We all know that change is possible, but they've done a very, very good job of making sure that

[passage 9](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) think." The air hangs heavy. Peter says the unthinkable. "I think he's going to go all the way, you know. I think he's going to have to. His generation are under so much pressure, and they need somebody to break through. We all know that change is possible, but they've done a very, very good job of making sure that there's nobody to lead it. I think he has that spirit." This is what Gregory had been afraid of, but it's also the price of the training. You want your son to be free, to understand the world by his own lights, and soon enough he's enrolled in the Army of Freedom, not a cadet, but tied up in an even older mess, an Army that may well date back to the paleolithic, passed hand-to-hand, mouth-to-ear for as long as there have been stories. Peter continues. "We don't know his destiny, we don't even know our own lives, Greg. But we can't deny the people freedom because we're not willing to make sacrifices. If he's take the spear, he might make history. God knows somebody has to." Harry's timing is always uncanny. It's one of his gifts. "Spear?" ===== I am 15. My uncle and father are, if not medicine men, descended from one. We've forgotten all that Papa knew, other than the history and some of the politics, but Peter's spent his life recreating it, not working from the Native sources - Papa closed the book on that! - but India, China, Jerusalem, Africa, trying to find the sacred thread that ties us all together, which could be renewed to build the future. They don't think I'm the Messiah, but they've failed themselves - eked out little lives, father still working for State monitoring in Africa, herding bots and people, trying to lessen the impact of our wars. Peter's a nomad, which is a polite way of saying a bum, making a living peddaling smalltime amounts of dope and occasionally mystic knowledge, stopping by on communes and ranches, working a little, waiting. My sisters are 8 and 9, and bright and precocious. But I would think that - I'm their brother, and they're blond haired, blue eyed icons of privilege. At least I have dark hair, something of the blood. Snap to focus. Peter's drawing a circle on the ground, about 5 meters across. Dad's sitting in meditation. He's never really mastered what Uncle Peter knows, but they trained together under Papa for a few years, and Dad never let it go entirely. Peter-the-magician. "Magic is the story of the world!" proclaims Peter, to nobody in particular, as dad walks around the circle, with a stick of sage and a tea kettle filled with stream water, muttering. I feel the cynicism recede. Hokey as it all as, I've seen what Peter can do. Last summer Peter and I spent three weeks in San Francisco, much of it stalking police men. Peter simply followed cops on foot, in their battle

[passage 10](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) walks around the circle, with a stick of sage and a tea kettle filled with stream water, muttering. I feel the cynicism recede. Hokey as it all as, I've seen what Peter can do. Last summer Peter and I spent three weeks in San Francisco, much of it stalking police men. Peter simply followed cops on foot, in their battle dress, rifles slung low, and walked two or three meters behind them on darkened streets, listening to their conversations as I wondered why they couldn't see him. They'd stop on a corner and he'd come right up behind them and ask for directions or a light for a joint, and they'd visibly startle. He played it with a straight face, which in its own way was even more impressive. The rush is here. I feel the air go still, and time stops. Everything contracts into the familiar eternal present as he makes the invocation. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!" "I stand here, secure in my personhood, the living spirit of the undying god manifest through time and space into eternity, every level of my being serene and united, beyond-stories, beyond-time, immanent, present and manifest, and I am secure in my freedom." The words, even in this place and time, never sound hollow. I note dad's backpack has a bunch of technical junk on top of it - broad spectrum jammers in case some forrestry drone wanders by and whistles back. Secure, indeed. Peter and Gregory look like gods now. They're old to my eye, but I see the force and wisdom, and even their bodies seem eternal, renewed with force and vigour. Peter carries a fair bit of it with him all the time, scooting across traffic like a teenager on a skateboard, or hauling up a tree. Dad's only like this in a circle, during ritual. It's only the second or third time I've seen him, and I don't know if he can do it alone, without Peter leading. Peter asks me, as Dad finishes the quarters, whether I know what The Spear is? "No, we've never talked about it. Dad's never mentioned it. Something native? Hitler's spear of destiny?" "Thelma, Peter, the Way of Freedom, has within it a concept of a spear or lance, something fundamental. European archetypes, the Lance, Arthur, Camelot, the Grail myth, the whole bit." The slight cynical flash again. The tea kettle of water is a chalice tonight. Boy campers in the woods playing shaman. "We're all the world has left, standing between the rest of our species and the end of all life, Harry. We don't know how many others there are, but as they digitize life, as they take up nature and make it into a pet, and wipe out what they cannot control, we become increasingly responsible for outcomes." I want to say "and what have you ever done about it?" and I know what he'll say if I open my mouth. "I trained

[passage 11](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) know how many others there are, but as they digitize life, as they take up nature and make it into a pet, and wipe out what they cannot control, we become increasingly responsible for outcomes." I want to say "and what have you ever done about it?" and I know what he'll say if I open my mouth. "I trained you." I've seen where this is going for a few years, Uncle Peter's sense of failure turning into a desire to pass the torch. And he's right - I'm smarter than he is, at least in book-smart terms, and I'm physically gifted. Not much facility for machines, I still lag too much when driving a simulator to really compete with my friends, but I'm fast in the real. I could do great things. If this was a century for that. "Uncle, what are you suggesting? What is the spear?" As I ask the question, it rises up from the base of my spine and hits me right in the heart, right in the chest. I see every tree propelled upwards by the Spear, I see it in my own cock, I see it in snakes and eels in oceans. My mouth opens and I hear myself say "Conscious life." Peter goes limp, and father sits down heavily. Peter pauses for a moment, then rummages around in his pocket and brings out a phone. He shows my my own face. I look like a god, there's a radiance, a glow in my eyes, and a fire. I look charismatic, gifted, heaven sent. We don't say anything. I feel it click into place in my personality, my energy, almost in my bones. "I am the spear." I'm not dumb. I know this kind of stuff passes, but it leaves traces, handles for history my uncle calls them. And I know that you roll with it, at least until you feel yourself going over the cliff into stupidity, cupidity or madness. He makes a fist, making sure I see him cock, and hurls it full force towards my face. I step back and turn, intercept at wrist and elbow, and brace. We freeze. The motion was completely reflexive, thoughtless, and perfect. I'm empty. Dad comes up behind Peter with the tea kettle of stream water, and I look into it before I drink. The water is frozen time, static intention, a reserve of nourishment, I see it as every animal or plant from the time before language saw water, and also as a scientist, hydrogen bonds and viscocity and micro structure. When I drink, it is cosmic. I'm all life, and without this, I will die. I imagine, perhaps, that I can taste the microtoxins, a trace of pesticides and heavy metals, and also traces of the tongues of the wildlife upstream - wolf spit and deer feet and otters and squirrels and above all plants. Sacred. Dad's teared up, and Peter hangs his head and breaths. "Peter, thank you" I say, and

[passage 12](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) I will die. I imagine, perhaps, that I can taste the microtoxins, a trace of pesticides and heavy metals, and also traces of the tongues of the wildlife upstream - wolf spit and deer feet and otters and squirrels and above all plants. Sacred. Dad's teared up, and Peter hangs his head and breaths. "Peter, thank you" I say, and I realize that he's been through this too, and he got as far as he got, and it's my turn now. "How old were you?" "I got it at 22, Harry. But your generation do everything much faster than we did, and your dad gave you a better start than mine did." Grandparents. It's supposed to be grandparents, but Frank never got it. I think about mom and the girls. "Can women do this too?" "Yes, but it's different for them - the Lance is secondary. Men kill as a primary primal activity, and women create. Both genders, both roles. The lance for a female helicopter pilot would make sense, but your mom plays the fiddle for a living." Dad sniggers. It's a family joke, she's actually quite a senior classical musician, but I see it all from so many perspectives right now. "Will you teach the girls, Peter?" "I don't think I know how, Harry, but I'll try and find them someone closer to their frequency and mindset, if there's an interest. I'll take the first step." I'm feeling the energy collapse, normality beginning to break in. I'm relieved. This has all been a bit much. I sit, abruptly. An expression of concern flickers over father's face. Peter starts to close the circle, a rod picked out of the fire, still smouldering a little, traces the pentagrams as he closes the circle. "May the mother and father of all that lives support us in this work!" The three of us recite, from the heart. "Love is the law, love under will." I wonder what it means. The next morning we hike back to the road and catch a ride home. It's done, we don't need any more time in the woods this trip. Peter suggests we borrow a cabin from some folks who live about an hour and a half from the music school and spend a few weeks up there, see mom and the girls on the weekends, and spend some time in town too. Somehow that sounds better than hitting the road in the little green van and seeing more of the world. I want to see home, familar things with these new eyes. Perhaps from there I can make more sense of it. Everything and nothing changed. I'm exactly who I was before, but now I recognize myself in the mirror. All life, on two legs, and not two braincells to rub together. I am 15. ===== The cadet process is mostly social. At first it's a game, a role-play. We're still riding to school on our bikes or dropped off by our parents. We arrive

[passage 13](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) changed. I'm exactly who I was before, but now I recognize myself in the mirror. All life, on two legs, and not two braincells to rub together. I am 15. ===== The cadet process is mostly social. At first it's a game, a role-play. We're still riding to school on our bikes or dropped off by our parents. We arrive in street clothes and change in the gym. Two hours of physical training before lunch, with a leisurely discussion with the two senior cadets and the sargeant about whatever's on our mind. Values, danger, risk, bravery, the war, but also dumb stuff - where are they from, what's their favorite part about being in the service, all of that. The afternoons are regular school work, but from a different syllabus. Economics, geography, history, bits of Spanish and Portuguese, what I'd later recognize as a Colonial education like they gave the British officer class. You have to know the people you're going to be fighting. We're chatting casually with the Senior Cadets and the Sargeant before lunch. I ask "What's the meaning of the cadet training to you, Sargeant? What did you get out of it?" He's about 22, although he's got a surprising amount of assurance for such a young man. He's a lot more solid than our teachers are. Buzzcut, blue eyes, a square jaw. He's muscular, but more a climber than a weight lifter. Even the Senior Cadets, only a year or a year and a half older than us on paper, move with a purpose and discipline that leaves me cold. They're probably the best of their classes - teaching is, after all, recruitment. But I also know that we don't grow up naturally that fast in a year. That's conditioning and drugs, shaping them into little soldiers. That's what Peter and dad were armouring me against by pushing me so far so fast so early. When they condition me, it won't take. I won't let it. I will not become a cookie-cutter killer. That's not my destiny. I know that now. "To me, Cadet, it's about service, and about values. Like you, I had to do Cadet service, it's part of how we all live. It's a core part our education for life. But I'm from a family of sailors, my forefathers fought in world war two, and we've often been in the service since. We all enjoy the benefits of this society, but if we can't fight to preserve it because we've gone soft, pretty soon it'll be machetes and machine guns all over the world. We're really important, to the way this country works, and to the world." Hands raised, indicating questions. Julie, one of the two girls in the group. He nods, and she speaks. "I think it's important to remember that we're showing people our values too. We're not making war for its own sake, we're trying to keep the peace, fighting for the world's future, to make it a better place.

[passage 14](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/mother_of_hydrogen.txt) and to the world." Hands raised, indicating questions. Julie, one of the two girls in the group. He nods, and she speaks. "I think it's important to remember that we're showing people our values too. We're not making war for its own sake, we're trying to keep the peace, fighting for the world's future, to make it a better place. It's not just about defending our country. It's about improving theirs. Saving the world." Predictably enough, she looks smug and self-satisfied. I see her for a moment in the far future, in a blue suit, a future politician. Mentally rehearsing her lines, the image. Future ambition written on her face. She's an idiot. I shake my head for a moment to clear the vision, and focus. I'm looking for cracks, for flaws, for weakness. "I don't see what's brave or dignified about driving robot tanks through slums shooting poor people. My father was Armour, and he says that the war was a mismanaged, stupid mess in his day." Of course, we're only kids. We have radical ideas, radical opinions. We're trouble. Sarge fluidly blends with the criticism "Well, in your father's time it was a huge mess in Africa, wasn't it? We were only in the early stages of our mission to Africa, we'd never really learned how to deploy remote-drive forces effectively in a less-than-total war scenario, and mistakes were made. Did your father stay with the Service to make things better?" Seamless. A councilor, an empath with a crew cut. There's nothing to push on, nothing to move against. "He's with State now, monitoring aid projects. He drives from home most of the year." I say, defeated. "So he did stick around to improve things, still serving our Nation. That's very good. I'm sure you'll make him proud." I have a momentary sensation of powerlessness, confronting The Machine in the man in front of me. He's not as smart as me, he's probably not as good at a lot of the things that as I am, and I'm going to surpass him on every front by the time I'm his age. But, right now, he's got the upper hand because they sat him down and drilled him for months in nonviolent communication, in manipulative psychology, in making people feel like he's a gentle, kind force of good as he shapes them into cogs. I bet I'd get the same polished response from every other Sarge in every other highschool in Colorado. He's just too good to be himself. This happens a lot. Training with the cadets, with Sarge, it's clear they're better than they have any natural right to be. It's not the man, it's the training. Over and over again I see this from him, from the Senior Cadets. They're polished bolts. We're nuts. A couple of the guys, from longtime local families, lived in the area for generations, start asking about travelling the world with the service, about battle. They sound like gung-ho idiots, eager to

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Continues in https://guptaoption.com/texts/148-2.md (part 2 of 11).
End of [148] Mother of Hydrogen, part 1 of 11. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.