At the beginning of the 2020s we were taken on an unplanned and involuntary journey into the future. I’ve been taking notes. Let’s get equipped.
Recently, we’ve experienced a relatively Dune-heavy season here at Theofuturism. I make no apologies. And this edition of Field Notes will be no different. After this, we will perhaps take a short break from Arrakis content, but no promises. One of the reasons why Frank Herbert’s excellent work stands up to such scrutiny is the multiple layers at which it can be read, studied, and enjoyed. Today, we are going to focus in on practical tools and thought technologies we can extract for use in our quest to become New Fremen. As previously, I owe this concept to Luke Burgis’ excellent set of essays on the topic. We have discussed the difficulties which our chaotic, transitional moment presents to us. By opening up the kit of unique survival gear utilized by the Fremen in Dune, we can arm ourselves with tools to conquer our adverse environments. Called a Fremkit in Herbert’s story, this package of carefully adapted kit plays a crucial role in understanding the Fremen. In many ways, their tools define them. Their mastery of bespoke tech allows them to thrive in incredibly harsh places that appear to all other observers hopelessly desolate. If you feel that you are confronting a wasteland in your life, perhaps it's time to upgrade your own armament.
As we unpack items from Herbert’s work, we can analogize to our own context. I agree wholeheartedly with Luke’s call to develop a New Fremen way of thinking, a life that refuses to be drawn into the failures of the Three Cities and avoids the perils of the digital desert. Today’s exercise gives us an excuse to think through our own toolkits, examining them with a critical eye. A toolbox often becomes the residence for the junk and castoffs of years of projects, more hindrance than help in the next endeavor. Taking the time to consciously prune our collection of implements is an excellent discipline. Our homes and workplaces are just fine for collecting clutter and kipple. But it is wise to remind yourself that your life can be condensed into what you carry with you, whether that be in your pockets or your mind. Refusing to decide what is truly this important is choosing bondage to multiplicity and redundancy. Where we are going, we will need to step lightly.
I. Orange Catholic Bible
Contained in Paul Atreides’ own set of survival tools, the only thing standing between him and desolation, is a tiny reminder of the true source of strength. This is a fascinating note in Herbert's story, in which religion predominantly plays a role of dangerous weapon to be utilized in political battles. A key difference between myself and Frank Herbert is of course that I would recommend only a single holy book, the Christian Bible. Whereas in Herbert's world, the OC Bible is a work created by a council of ecumenical redactors designed to have universal appeal and utility. My theological differences, and they are profound, aside; Herbert stands almost unique within the science fiction canon in his understanding of the fundamental place religion plays in human survival and resilience. I will note that it is not enough to simply hold the talismans of a faith or pursue the aesthetics and morals of one. Belief and faith in themselves are neither goals nor gods. They are responses to external reality. As you prepare to confront your physical or spiritual wilderness, ask yourself what scripture you are taking and why. The assumed answer you may find is not always true. Many are actually following a different book than they profess. You will find that it is all too easy for city dwellers and cosmopolitans to encounter life with a backpack or several shelves of competing holy writ. This intellectually experimental affectation does not long survive the desert wind. The risks and rigors of real modern life will not permit us any creeds or paths in reserve. And when we confront the heart of the deep desert, we must come armed with a compass and map for our spirit more sure than our own moods and minds.
II. Literjons and Water Discipline
Environmental awareness, intense self-sufficiency, and constant concern for the security and health of the tribe. The Fremen are creatures of their environment and demonstrate harmony and cooperation with even the most fearsome terrain. As Paul learns, moments of weakness involving water can result in harm both to the unwise and to the people who trust in and rely on them for survival. Awareness is in fact something of a keyword for Herbert, who uses the concept to explore questions human consciousness and psychology. The Fremen cannot survive Arrakis without paying close attention. They learn the condition of various types of sand, the dangers presented by creatures and humans, and especially constant care for how their body is using and processing moisture. Relaxation of awareness would mean death, whether instant or by slow unnoticeable degrees. So they carry their water well, both in reserve and in their own person. They are stewards of precious resources in trust for their tribe, refusing to look at even their own blood and spit as theirs to waste.
In many ways, awareness is exactly what many of us adrift in the present lack. We float from activity to activity by impulse but rarely spare a moment to ask ourselves why we are scrolling or watching. Our lifeblood of time and attention is often drained without thought, or at least without much conscious effort on our part. While we know (some of us) that the world around us is intent on attracting and holding our attention, we often do not behave differently as a result. And yet our life slowly leaks from our minds with each passing minute. The New Fremen will need to recognize that their attention is their most precious resource, and that it properly belongs to those closest to them, not those at an impossible distance. They will harness tools, no matter our unorthodox or seemingly extreme, that enable maximum conservation of their time so that it can be measured out carefully at their will. Desert dwellers cannot afford the luxuries of the cities. Can we afford to be careless, hopeless or halfhearted in our quest to live well? Build your awareness so that you can sense again the loss of what is most precious to you.
III. Maker Hooks and Thumper
Finally, the Fremkit contains the tools to harness fearsome foes. The Fremen use these implements to attract and ride gigantic worms swimming beneath the sand. While others view these animals as reason to shun the desert entirely, the Fremen know that the greatest risks carry the possibility of greatest reward. Rather than fear their environment, they have chosen to study it so that they can bend it to their own devices. While an outsider’s careless steps draw death, the Fremen summon the very same worms intentionally, because they know how to turn implacable power to their advantage. They keep their own secrets, and so others flee from the world they are able to master. The territory they inhabit has been written off as hopeless by their enemies and their friends. And therefore their strength grows beyond exponential, to unimagineable.
It’s time for the New Fremen move beyond the avoidance of technological risk as a strategy. We have been calling for caution for decades. The great danger is known, and we are correctly warned. But the promise is not all negative. And abandoning such power to our enemies is foolish negligence. We already have ample examples of the havoc morally indeterminate people armed with intensely powerful tools can create. The New Fremen, hardened by their willful rejection of easy ways, might in fact be the only humans capable of truly controlling the seismic technologic current. Look around you and count the technological advantages that would have been almost magical to your great-grandparents. It’s easy for us to find the flaws and the dangers. It’s harder to challenge ourselves to manage them. It requires more discipline to use Twitter well than to abandon it. Only those who have mastered themselves can subjugate such things. When we come back out of the desert, it will be to wield the power we practiced in seclusion.
Perhaps, after all, we really need fewer tools. It’s all too easy for you to become paralyzed by a fully-stocked workshop. There’s always a slightly better option for just this specific job. There is much to be gained by approaching your life as a survival exercise. Introduce a little artificial scarcity. Manufacture some discomfort. Let the suffering show you which parts of your dizzying wealth are really weights in disguise. Challenge yourself to fill a real or metaphorical kit with only what you need. Could you do your work or your art with less? The exercise in limitation will build your strength even if it never becomes strictly necessary. We are apt to become creatures of slowly feathered nests, smothering ourselves in our comforting insulation from the terror of decision and consequence. If you’ve ever walked in the desert, you know the abrupt reality that comes with the realization that you’ve reached the end of civilization; if you keep walking on your current heading without adequate supplies or direction, you will simply die. Have you forced yourself to this moment in your craft, your calling, your faith? Have you discovered the ingenuity required to make do with a few multitasking reliable lifelines and copious prayer? Choose carefully. The desert is calling.
I’ll see you in the Future.
“What’s in there?”
“Only what you take with you.” ~ Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Be prepared to appreciate what you meet. ~ Frank Herbert, Dune
Who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. ~ Deuteronomy 8:15-16
“It requires more discipline to use Twitter well than to abandon it.” This is so thought-provoking--I am sometimes guilty of “technology is evil and rotting our brains”-type hyperbole. But the truth is I just need to find the willpower to keep only the tech tools/accompanying habits that serve me and put the rest (read: mindless Instagram scrolling, checking work emails for no reason, spending hours reading petty comments on Reddit) back in the box lest they deplete me. Easier said than done, of course 😊