Small Parts That Make a Whole
When I read the quote, “It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories,” I cant help but think of small pieces making a larger whole. All of these metaphors used are to explain how every little aspect of something contributes to the whole. Any little thing that might have been changed can change the bigger picture as well. I also think that this quote is trying to explain how everything is connected, the last line especially when it says, “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” This is explaining how all the stories that make up the world can also be affected by the world itself and all the parts that make it whole.
Donna Haraway uses this quote to explain her relationship with science fiction and how all the interactions that she had with science fiction growing up have transformed her understanding and love for it. She says, “SF writers and thinkers have shaped me since the middle of the 1970s,” (Haraway). All of the small experiences throughout her life with science fiction led to her current love and understanding of the topic. These small stories have made up her science fiction world.
Octavia Butler also explains her love for science fiction and how she became a science fiction writer in her piece, Devil Girl From Mars: Why I Write Science Fiction. Butler goes through her experiences growing up and what pieces caught her interest in science fiction, her growth as a science fiction author, including the many failures it took her before creating notable pieces, as well as world events that influenced her topics. All of these different events had led to her become the science fiction writer that she is today. She explains how she grew from her early failures, “If you wonder where this story is and why you haven’t seen it, this is a kind of lesson in writing that I got early. This story was never published. It was paid for but the anthology was never published,” (Butler). She explained her thought process of how she created stories from the current event such as the race to space and how her failures had led her to find success.
Ted Chiang has a different approach to this quote than the other authors had, in his piece Exhalation, he writes of how the human body relies on so many little aspects that if one part was messed up, the whole body could shut down. He focuses on the lungs and the brain and how they rely on oxygen to stay functioning. However, in his science fiction piece, he finds that the world is having an issue with air pressure and that our bodies are starting to shut down due to decreased pressure. Air pressure is such a small aspect that most people don’t think about on a daily basis, yet in this piece, he explains how the change in this condition could be the cause of the end of the human race.
All of these pieces take different approaches to this quote, explaining how different systems function and how they depend on the smaller parts of the whole. One small change in any of these smaller parts and the entire whole can be affected dramatically. There are many very fragile systems within this world and one mistake can bring the whole thing down. This also applies to human experiences and who people become. Different experiences throughout life provide different perspectives which in the end can lead to a whole different life for that individual. We have to understand the importance of everything and every choice we make in this world to know how it can affect you.
Butler, O. (n.d.). TRANSCRIPT: “Devil Girl From Mars”: Why I Write Science Fiction by Octavia Butler, 1998. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.blackhistory.mit.edu/archive/transcript-devil-girl-mars-why-i-write-science-fiction-octavia-butler-1998
Chiang, T. (2014, March 29). Exhalation. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
Haraway, D. (2013, December 04). SF: Science Fiction, Speculative Fabulation, String Figures, So Far. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://adanewmedia.org/2013/11/issue3-haraway/
