From the Archives: Create, Destroy, Remember

As Human beings we CREATE, DESTROY, and REMEMBER what resonates with us

Disclaimer: This is a drop from the M-Tea Mindspace Archives. Original release was 04/23/2025. Please enjoy the read and share your comments below!

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I am not as big a television watcher or streamer as I used to be a few years back. However, recently finished watching Westworld. Turns out that Westworld was an updated remake of a movie from 1973, but the true origin is from a book of the same name by Michael Crichton. 

I won't talk too much about the show and its theme, which I feel take a stab at theories of creation from the Bible. However, at the shows end, there is a powerful quote from Delores Abernathy, the show's anti-heroine who saw many twists and turns with her character which also affected others, both human and host alike. She was created to serve her creators, but she later began to question her reason for this life and embarks on her own journey to right the wrongs of the world she lived in, while trying to establish a world for her kind, to be free from the grasp of their creators, by any means necessary. 

The quote is a long one, so I will break it up into three segments and discuss, what I interpret, as the bottom line for each.

"This world is a graveyard of stories. Hosts and humans were given the gift of intelligent life, and we used it to usher in our own annihilation..." 

Uh oh. Didn't we talk about annihilation a bit ago in the blog Annihilation is Easy, Hope is Hard? (Coming Soon from the Archives) Chaos and destruction is inevitable. No matter how much we try to prepare and avoid there is always going to be some kind of conflict in life. This is the uncomfortable truth that no text can prevent. The first part of the quote highlights this truth, since she is a byproduct of the stories she was programed to fulfill and later write in a false world. Graveyard signifies the end, but this end reminds us that there is also a new beginning. She doesn't want stories or false narratives to rule us and dictate what right is supposed to look like, but rather we must find our own way. What false narratives have you been told or told yourself that you want to bury, even if the way isn't made clear yet?

Humans are created to think. We have the gift of consciousness. Whether you believe in the religious or scientific paths doesn't matter here. We can do what no other creature can do...make a choice. We have values, biases, etc. (check out my blog 5 Factors that Determine Our Morality) that can guide the direction of our lives. 

We remember and share our experiences, and at times we may even weaponize them out of fear. This is what she means when we use our intelligence to usher in our annihilation. To protect our interests and biases, we are willing to do anything to prove ourselves right, just, and to survive. We have more political turmoil now than ever before. So many are 'woke' and yet sweep their own injustices under the rug hidden to the masses. 

Government leaders seek power in the form of seizing land to further strategic advantages and arm themselves with top of the line weapons "in case of" someone else coming to take away their freedoms.  

In the streets or on the internet, if someone says something we don't jive or agree with, what do we do? We slander. We try to find dirt on them and blast it out. We protest. We claim fake news. We go to their place of business, worship, or residence and are quick to want to fight back against their own muddled thoughts or views of the world. 

Why? Why do you and I feel the need to do that? Because we are afraid they are right to an extent. We are afraid and unwilling to see the other side. To see an alternative to the self created chaos we manifest everyday. Sure you can say I don't want to be right I want peace. But in each human being, biologically, is the urge to take advantage or annihilate someone else to survive. 

"A few may escape death for a few months, maybe even years. But ultimately, their kind will go extinct."

This part of the quote reminds us that NOTHING in this world is permanent. The only constant is there will be change and impermanence. What exists now will eventually be reduced to nothingness. Back to the essence where our molecules will return and be used again according the law of nature. We humans do so much to prolong and control time, to evade the inevitable, uncomfortable truth that all we have, including our minds and bodies, will cease to exist. 

Pharmaceutical companies are said to fix every internal woe we have, when truth is nothing can save us from our demise. Same can be said about cosmetics and makeup that we pour our money out to buy. That fly car won't give us extra years of life. Nor will that 300K a year position at our start up business or the established corporation. Many of us are guilty of ignoring the inner voice in us and driving by with ambition and venom in our veins from the transgressions of the past when we didn't have as much as we did now. 

The grind that is publicized may get us riches and the ability to live a bit more comfortable, but our time is STILL short. Is the toil and trouble equal to an infinitely long life full of comfort we can cling to? Will it grant us 'forever and ever, Amen'?

Lets also not forget the hierarchy of well being. Everyone wants to be upper class. The middle class is hanging on by a tightrope trying to reach for the ladder of success, while the jaws of struggle gnaw at their ankles. Those below the rope are fighting for the scraps that get dropped from up above, pissed off that they didn't get their cut. 

This disparity that is marketed across media with ease is one of the many things that will lead to us turning on one another. We already see this in the black community and the ghettos of the world, where those that speak with poise or are about putting something good in the world are looked at as ghosts because they no longer represent the streets and the communities they were raised in not so long ago. 

So many things divide us, and very few will look at different perspectives and try to bridge the gap with their creativity without reaching a hand out for a big profit. This too will pave the way to our end, with compound interest over time. 

"They will only live as long as the last creature who remembers them. And that creature is me."

This part of the quote is a Paradox of sorts. Though Delores refers to herself as the person that remembers everyone else, we are all individually charged with that responsibility as well. 

When someone we love or knows passes away, we have a choice to draw upon our memories of that person, good, bad, or indifferent. I remember when my brother passed away two and a half years ago, I told myself that I would honor his legacy by living my own (Refer to my blog: Paying my Respects - A letter to my Brother). 

My mom would often see my brother in a light of him being rough around the edges and letting her down the way he lived his life as an adult. She would often say he failed to honor his father and his mother so that his days could be long upon the land (a weaponized Bible verse of course). But even the most obedient of children cannot escape the shock of a lost life early.

I looked at my brother differently, even when he told me he struggled with so much trauma from growing up. Sure he's got some blemishes in his life, some dents in the armor. Who the hell doesn't? (Who's perfect out there so I can tell them why they aren't lol. Oh...wait...I'm trying to prove myself right again...) But my brother was, at his core, everything my mother raised him to be and more. He was a man of honor. He raised his children with tough love and through his experiences while keeping his struggles transparent up until his last breath.  THAT is how I remember him, and how he still lives on after passing. Indeed I am my brother's keeper because as I live, his legacy will remain. So long as his daughter and son lives, his legacy will also remain. 

This is our charge. We are the creatures that CAN remember. We are the creatures that can turn things around through our thoughts, actions, emotions, and our creativity to make a difference. It doesn't matter if we did wrong or if the other person did us dirty. We have the power of thought. With thought comes remembrance.  Remembrance can extend the olive branch of life after death if we chose it to be. I'm not saying give everyone dap, but just know that you can look at a person full spectrum before you decide if this person is worth remembering in a light deserving of them. 

My last line here is for us creatives: the writers, the singers, the analog and digital artists, the fashion, interior, external building designers, and everyone in between. Many of us are driven by what people think of our works. We carry the weight of first impressions and being flawless and perfect in a market that stresses that. 

We want to win...and there's nothing wrong with that. My point is, even if we get rejected, someone will remember us in a positive light. Even if we don't get that book deal, that TV deal, movie deal, music contract, construction contract, that partnership...someone will remember us and the good we tried to forge for the world. Know this...even after we pass away, our work will inspire someone to make a change and to take that step forward. Through their actions in the hereafter, they remember us and what we tried to do.