neighborhood. Instead, things are unraveling, disintegrating bit by bit. Susan Talcott Bruce and her husband have applied to Olivar.
Other people are talking about applying, thinking about it. There’s a small college in Olivar. There are lethal security devices to keep thugs and the street poor out. There are more jobs opening up… .
Maybe Olivar is the future— one face of it. Cities controlled by big companies are old hat in science fiction. My grandmother left a whole bookcase of old science fiction novels. The company-city subgenre always seemed to star a hero who outsmarted, overthrew, or escaped “the company.” I’ve never seen one where the hero fought like hell to get taken in and underpaid by the company. In real life, that’s the way it will be. That’s the way it is.
And what should I be doing? What can I do? In less than a year, I’ll be 18, an adult— an adult with no prospects except life in our disintegrating neighborhood. Or Earthseed.
To begin Earthseed, I’ll have to go outside. I’ve known that for a long time, but the idea scares me just as much as it always has.
Next year when I’m 18, I’ll go. That means now I have to begin to plan how I’ll handle it.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2026
I’m going to go north. My grandparents once traveled a lot by car. They left us old road maps of just about every county in the state plus several of other parts of the country. The newest of them is 40
years old, but that doesn’t matter. The roads will still be there. They’ll just be in worse shape than they were back when my grandparents drove a gas-fueled car over them. I’ve put maps of the California counties north of us and the few I could find of Washington and Oregon counties into my pack.
I wonder if there are people outside who will pay me to teach them reading and writing— basic stuff— or people who will pay me to read or write for them.
Keith started me thinking about that. I might even be able to teach some Earthseed verses along with the reading and writing. Given any chance at all, teaching is what I would choose to do. Even if I have to take other kinds of work to get enough to eat, I can teach. If I do it well, it will draw people to me— to Earthseed.
All successful life is
Adaptable,
Opportunistic,
Tenacious,
Interconnected, and
Fecund.
Understand this.
Use it.
Shape God.
I wrote that verse a few months ago. It’s true like all the verses. It seems more true than ever now, more useful to me when I’m afraid.
I’ve finally got a title for my book of Earthseed verses— Earthseed: The Book of the Living. There are the Tibetan and the Egyptian Books of the Dead.
Dad has copies of them. I’ve never heard of anything called a book of the living, but I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that there is something. I don’t care. I’m trying to speak— to write— the truth. I’m trying to be clear. I’m not interested in being fancy, or even original. Clarity and truth will be plenty, if I can only achieve them. If it happens that there are other people outside somewhere preaching my truth, I’ll join them. Otherwise, I’ll adapt where I must, take what opportunities I can find or make, hang on, gather students, and teach.
12
We are Earthseed
The life that perceives itself
Changing.
EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2026
The Garfields have been accepted at Olivar.
They’ll be moving next month. That soon. I’ve known them all my life, and they’ll be gone. Joanne and I have had our differences, but we grew up together. I thought somehow that when I left, she would still be here. Everyone would still be here, frozen in time just as I left them. But no, that’s fantasy. God is Change.
“Do you want to go?” I asked her this morning. We had gotten together to pick a few early lemons and navel oranges and some persimmons, almost ripe and brilliant orange. We picked at my house, and then at hers, enjoying the work. The weather was cool. It was good to be outside.
“I have to go,” she said. “What else is there for me-for anyone. It’s all going to hell here. You know it is.”
I stared at her. I guess discussing such things is all right now that she has a way out. “So you move into another fortress,” I said.
“It’s a better fortress. It won’t have people coming over the walls, killing old ladies.”
“Your mother says all you’ll have is an apartment.
No yard. No garden. You’ll have less money, but you’ll have to use more of it to buy food.”
“We’ll manage!” There was a brittle quality to her voice.
I put down the old rake I was using as a fruit picker.
It worked fine on the lemons and oranges. “Scared?”
I asked.
She put down her own real fruit picker with its awkward extension handle and small fruit-catching basket. It was best for persimmons. She hugged herself. “I’ve lived here, lived with trees and gardens all my life. I… don’t know how it will be to be shut up in an apartment. It does scare me, but we’ll manage.
