We’re Going on an Adventure!
In which we hit the road, and think about slime molds and Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Ruin".
We’re going on an adventure!
We recently had family visiting. Every morning we would meet, choose a fun destination, and hit the road.
I painted this picture to try to capture the excitement at the start of the trip. It’s that feeling when you first push a kayak away from shore and the boat seems to come alive with its new freedom. Or the feeling when you first mount a horse at the start of a ride, and you feel the power and willingness in the pony’s movements.
The title (“We’re Going on an Adventure”) is from a science fiction book named Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The story looks at different types of consciousness that might evolve in different types of organisms.
One of the creatures in the book is a parasitic slime mold which infects other species, sort of in the way Toxoplasma gondii does. This colonial/social slime mold would be enormously excited to find itself in a new host, at the possibilities of what it can learn and see. Hosts infected by the slime mold would often excitedly burble things like “We’re going on an adventure!”.
I’d imagine it’s a similar excitement that we feel when setting out on a trip. Admittedly, though, a different type of adventure.