Fawning over Dune at Work

 Nothing beats getting riled up over DUNE with a colleague on a grim cloudy Monday morning, especially when you don't expect them to be a fan and it turned out they read the first book at least.

Eclipse by Pink Floyd, finally in its rightful place

 

Please, don't let me down. Please.

Dune

 I knew 2020 will be my year before 2020 became 2020.

But this takes it to an even more authentic level.

Fucking finally

Not to say it's perfect or it is not raising few issues with the Dune purist that I am.

But Denis has built a reputation of being respectful to the original medium and I am rooting so hard from the promising visuals and cast and dialogue and insight and oh my god, I am losing it already T.T

On Pain and Being Human

"Put your right hand in the box," she said.
Paul put his hand into the box. He felt first a sense of cold as the blackness closed around his hand, then slick metal against his fingers and a prickling as though his hand were asleep.
"I hold at your neck the gom jabbar," she said. "The gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It's a needle with a drop of poison on its tip. Ah-ah! Don't pull away or you'll feel that poison."
"A duke's son must know about poisons," she said. "It's the way of our times, eh? Musky, to be poisoned in your drink. Aumas, to be poisoned in your food. The quick ones and the slow ones and the ones in between. Here's a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals."
Pride overcame Paul's fear. "You dare suggest a duke's son is an animal?" he demanded.
"Let us say I suggest you may be human," she said. "Steady! I warn you not to try jerking away. I am old, but my hand can drive this needle into your neck before you escape me."
"Good," she said. "You pass the first test. Now, here's the way of the rest of it: If you withdraw your hand from the box you die. This is the only rule. Keep your hand in the box and live. Withdraw it and die."
"Your mother survived this test. Now it's your turn. Be honored. We seldom administer this to men-children."
Curiosity reduced Paul's fear to a manageable level. He heard truth in the old woman's voice, no denying it. If his mother stood guard out there . . . if this were truly a test . . . And whatever it was, he knew himself caught in it, trapped by that hand at his neck: the gom jabbar. He recalled the response from the Litany against Fear as his mother had taught him out of the Bene Gesserit rite.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain ."
He felt calmness return, said: "Get on with it, old woman."
"You will feel pain in this hand within the box. Pain. But! Withdraw the hand and I'll touch your neck with my gom jabbar - the death so swift it's like the fall of the headsman's axe. Withdraw your hand and the gom jabbar takes you. Understand?"
"What's in the box?"
"Pain."
He felt increased tingling in his hand, pressed his lips tightly together. How could this be a test? he wondered. The tingling became an itch.
The old woman said; "You've heard of animals chewing off a leg to escape a trap? There's an animal kind of trick. A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat to his kind."
The itch became the faintest burning. "Why are you doing this?" he demanded.
"To determine if you're human. Be silent."
Paul clenched his left hand into a fist as the burning sensation increased in the other hand. It mounted slowly: heat upon heat upon heat . . . upon heat. He felt the fingernails of his free hand biting the palm. He tried to flex the fingers of the burning hand, but couldn't move them.
"It burns," he whispered.
"Silence!"
Pain throbbed up his arm. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Every fiber cried out to withdraw the hand from that burning pit . . . but . . . the gom jabbar. Without turning his head, he tried to move his eyes to see that terrible needle poised beside his neck. He sensed that he was breathing in gasps, tried to slow his breaths and couldn't.
Pain!
His world emptied of everything except that hand immersed in agony, the ancient face inches away staring at him.
His lips were so dry he had difficulty separating them.
The burning! The burning!
He thought he could feel skin curling black on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained.
It stopped!
As though a switch had been turned off, the pain stopped.
Paul felt his right arm trembling, felt sweat bathing his body.
"Enough," the old woman muttered. "Kull wahad! No woman child ever withstood that much. I must've wanted you to fail." She leaned back, withdrawing the gom jabbar from the side of his neck. "Take your hand from the box, young human, and look at it."
He fought down an aching shiver, stared at the lightless void where his hand seemed to remain of its own volition. Memory of pain inhibited every movement. Reason told him he would withdraw a blackened stump from that box.
"Do it!" she snapped.
He jerked his hand from the box, stared at it astonished. Not a mark. No sign of agony on the flesh. He held up the hand, turned it, flexed the fingers.
"Pain by nerve induction," she said. "Can't go around maiming potential humans. There're those who'd give a pretty for the secret of this box, though." She slipped it into the folds of her gown.
"But the pain - " he said.
"Pain," she sniffed. "A human can override any nerve in the body."
Paul felt his left hand aching, uncurled the clenched fingers, looked at four bloody marks where fingernails had bitten his palm. He dropped the hand to his side, looked at the old woman. "You did that to my mother once?"
"Ever sift sand through a screen?" she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen , he nodded.
"We Bene Gesserit sift people to find the humans."
He lifted his right hand, willing the memory of the pain. "And that's all there is to it - pain?"
"I observed you in pain, lad. Pain's merely the axis of the test. Your mother's told you about our ways of observing. I see the signs of her teaching in you. Our test is crisis and observation."
"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.
"To set you free."
"Free?"

I yet again find myself in the eye of a whirlpool of pain, the close ones around me right now, right here, ache with the leftovers of a pain not dealt with.

Everytime I listen to an other account, I can't help but remember somewhere in my head the test of the Gom Jabbar. It is unfortunate that I can't share this tale with its full resonance with them.

Because in the end, it is the tale of using the easy way out of pain, much like an animal using its reptilian mind directly to escape the pain.

It is a tale of lacking emotional intelligence to deal with pain the healthy way, and rather dealing with it on a physical response level and drowning its effect and noise in other people, in full-time commitment activities.

The close ones around me ached and are still paying the consequences of not embracing these shards: I see this incest in the sufferance and I see the ones dragged in it, unbeknownst to them. I see how being a pinnocchio instead of being a human is a choice, an easy one, and I see the anger at being qualified of such.

To stay on the safe beaches of the human experience to avoid a sudden pain that stroke too deep too early, without the proper tools at hands at that time to deal with it, this I can understand.

Now though, it is the moment where one can choose the hard choice and acquire the tools to properly deal with ones pains, untangle their hold over one's life, and dive in the sea of the human condition.

Dune

Dune again because I found it in the library and bought it yet again, and because humanity

“A duke’s son must know about poisons. . . . Here’s a new one for you: the gom jabbar. It kills only animals.”

Mid-Ramadan

Going through a trip.
To think of where I was and where I'm heading gives but a glimpse  of what I was and what I'm becoming.
But along the way as usual, Dune saga is within reach.
At work, a colleague with a warm undertone asked me:
-"And what about you, K? What is your obsession?"


Obsessions.

Dune is the saga of sagas, the tale of tales, the universe with so many everfolding dimensions and perspectives to look through. I came to the simple conviction that I can spend my lifetime reading the material over and over again and it will fill all my mental needs, give in the branching of a big tree that will lead me to many faces of the creation.

Dune, Again and again and again and again..

-"Chani, what is this?" he asked.
-"I dispatched one who came to challenge you in single combat, Usul."
-"You killed him?"
-"Yes. But perhaps I should have left him for Harah."
[...]
-"But he came to challenge me!"
-"You trained me youself in the weirding way, Usul."
-"Certainly! But you shouldn't..."
-"I was born in the desert, Usul. I know how to use a crysknife."
[...]
-"He wasn't worthy, Usul," Chani said."I wouldn't disturb your meditation with the likes of him."She moved closer, dropping her voice so that only he might hear."And, beloved, when it's learned that a challenger may face me and be brought to shameful death by Muad'Dib's woman, there will be fewer challengers."

Dune, Frank Herbert

The week-end was utterly exhausting and rewarding. I end it up with a rewatch of the Dune miniseries. No motion picture could ever give justice to such a saga, but it's always nice to see some try.

Ah, Chani and Muad'Dib.

SHOPPING SPREE WEEE

I just bought me the WHOLE Dune collection!

I still can't believe it....It's like that day with the murakamis, only this time it's the Herberts!

I LOVE THE ATREIDES! I LOVE SANDWORMS! I LOVE THE SPICE AND I EVEN APPRECIATE THE HARKONNENS!

And this time, I will make SURE I'm taking them with me even if I have to leave my own laptop there. I'm serious.

Leto II

Maybe it's reconnecting with my oldest series, maybe it's the nostalgia or the fact that of all the characters, I understand Leto II the best, but I'm having a blast with the God Emperor: I can't stop fangirling over the creature.

Then again, I always loved worms to the point of eating them and I have always had at least 1/2 tsp of cinnamon a day in my food. No wonder I have a thing for Sandworms.

Magnificent creatures, just magnificent creatures.

How to Learn

Muad’Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It’s shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad’Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson.

from The Humanity of Muad’Dib by the Princess Irulan (Dune)

This Memory of Eden

-This memory of Eden haunts us all-

Desert Rose by Sting

What About Starks?

-"What about them?"

My Spanish roomate doesn't get it that I despise Game of Thrones series.

-"Starks are noble and you like noble characters. And Lannisters are very fucked up and you like fucked up things, and they have dragons and a powerful female characters..."

That's a minimalistic way to put things, dude.

-"Miguel, you didn't grow up having Atreides in your life obviously. And Lannisters, except Tyrion, lack the whole grace of Harkonnens."

I've read that series' first two books and tried to go through the third one valiantly: I just can't but I did anyway and read the whole published bunch but I'm too ashamed of that so please don't mention it and besides it was the case for a shitload of books as well*. It seems as if someone tried to digest LoTR but couldn't, puked the whole thing in a raw fashion and decided to add some boobs, sex and random kills here and there to make it edible. Dude....

I'm an Atreides!

*FYI: If I despise something AND don't read it over, I don't consider myself having read it and I don't talk about it. I don't like spreading ideas I don't support through positive or negative discussion.

God Emperor Leto

All Hail Leto Atreides II.

God Emperor of Dune by Nathan Rosario

I have a confession to make: I do have a favorite among the DUNE cast. I will not further my shameful confession with a name.