Welcome to my struggle, la brega, by me, Jaime Colon. You know how online recipes give the entire life story of their creator before finally getting to the review which is the only reason you came in the first place? This will be sort of like that. With this newsletter, I plan to curate and review for you the music, books, games, movies, articles, TV-shows, art and more that goes beyond merely entertaining me; it's the media that leaves a mark on my heart and soul. And you're going to have to get to know my heart and soul for the reviews to make sense—hence the life story before the recipe. But I promise, at the end of each newsletter, you'll know for certain whether what I've recommended will speak to you, and until you can show me a streaming service whose generic five-star, thumbs-up/thumbs-down rating system can offer you that, I'll be here, on la brega.
(I tried to code in a jump to recipe button here but apparently substack doesn’t like that so I guess you’re in for the ride.)
We come from the ocean, and we only survive by carrying salt water with all our lives - in our blood, in our cells. The sea is our true home. This is why we find the shores so calming: we stand where the waves break, like exiles returning home.
- Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea
I went to a Catholic elementary, middle, and high school. I read at my local church every Sunday while my sister was an altar girl. My entire identity before attending college was deeply intertwined with Catholic ideology and ethics. Which is why it was so hard for me to move on from this religion as I got older.
My story isn’t unique. I was Catholic, then I went out into the world and started asking the obvious questions that caused it all to fall apart. From the Catholic Church’s treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community to the continuing atrocities the Catholic Church commits in relation to child sexual abuse, in the archdiocese where I was raised no less, it became impossible for me to call myself Catholic. What boggled my mind—and hurt the most—was that I didn’t see these teachings in my version of Catholicism. I had done the readings, I had done the study, and to me it was clear;we were given two rules: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” These rules demonstrated exactly what I wanted my faith to be: the idea that we are all united in love. But some of the church’s other teachings strayed so far from that belief. How could a God who created us and loves us infinitely, condemn us to hell for eternity? Not just like a bit of time. Not just a few millennia. Eternity! We’re wholly unable to understand just how long that is just like we are unable to really comprehend how much a billion is because the word billionaire is tossed around so frequently now.
I have always wanted to escape any limits to that central tenet that we were all bound together inexorably. That despite our differences, our individual interactions with others can shape our own world.
That said, defying the limits of my Catholic upbringing didn’t suddenly turn me into a paladin of good, bound to this one, central oath. In fact, I spent years betraying this ideal. I’ve made mistake after mistake. I’ve done terrible things to people I love. I was the person who now haunts my sleepless nights. There were times when the guilt at the things I had done threatened to overwhelm me and ensure I saw the view from halfway down. And yet… here I am.
This is the mystery we thrust ourselves into: A single neuron is not conscious of its existence. A network of billions of unconscious single neurons is. These monads living in a world without perception become a being that perceives, thinks, and acts. Consciousness lies not in neurons, but in a sophisticated pattern of connectivity.
- Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea
I didn’t get better magically. I didn’t wake up a new and different person. I couldn’t forget the things I had done and said before even if I tried. At some point, I arrived at a precipice, and I saw I had two options, to turn away or to go off the deep end. And at that cliff, I pulled my foot back. Since then, I’ve just tried to be a little better every day. But all that would have meant nothing if it weren’t for the people around me. Without them I would not be here today. They helped me to grow and be better. To Evolve.
And in the midst of my own personal revolution, I saw Kurzgesagt’s animated video of Andy Wier’s excellent short story, “The Egg.”
This was it. It wasn’t a religion or philosophy. It was a science fiction short story about reincarnation that made it all very simple. Every person you’ve hurt, loved, inflicted violence on, broke bread with and laughed with is you. Every time someone cut in front of you in line, paid for your drink, talked too loud in the movies, held the door for you, or created a piece of media that you enjoyed, that was you too. This might be exactly how scientology started, but I hope the commune or apocalyptic warband based on this philosophy will go a bit better than that. Either way, this idea of innate connection in our very creation is what changed me the most.
Communication is communion. When we communicate with others, we take something from them into ourselves, and give them something of ours.
- Ray Nayler, The Mountain in the Sea
As you may have guessed by my not-so-subtle quotation to the text, my newest stop on this search for connectivity brought me to Ray Nayler’s “The Mountain in the Sea.” The book is half ecological cautionary tale, half alien communication drama, half philosophy about the nature of being human and half artificial intelligence commentary. I guess that’s four halves, so it’s two books in one really. Imagine the movie “Arrival” had a child with the show “The Blue Planet” in the “Black Mirror” dimension.
The story is set in the near future and mainly follows a marine biologist named Dr. Ha Nguyen who is hired by a technology based mega corporation to work on an island off the coast of Vietnam studying a new species of hyper-intelligent octopi. These octopi turn out to be even more than she ever thought they could be and lead to her question the very meaning of humanity. She examines consciousness—connectivity—and is aided by an android, created by the corporation, that (who?) is indistinguishable from a human. Throughout the novel we are given glimpses into the lives of others in this world and, in particular, their own short experiences with technology, ranging from a man stolen to be a slave on an AI-controlled fishing vessel, to a computer programer trying to solve an impossible equation that has left a trail of dead bodies in its wake.
At its core, however, this book seeks to give its reader a unique view into our place in the biology of this world and realize that we, as humans, can still evolve; not only physically, but in our consciousness and intelligence. This book attempts to open our third eye to see how we are uniquely connected with every other living thing and further, to what it means to be alive in the first place. It’s more interested in asking questions and unlocking your curiosity than it is interested in answering those questions. It is speculative fiction at its best: it makes you look to the past, present and future all at the same time. And although the book fails to build to a properly exciting crescendo, its finale is still satisfying and optimistic, which is frankly a welcome and unexpected conclusion for a novel that makes such frank commentary about humanity’s effect on the environment.
Its short chapters, quick pace, and descriptive style of writing makes it perfect for those like me—with attention spans whittled away by the likes of TikTok and the 24-hour news cycle—as each chapter is full of fresh twists and turns. But the quick pace takes nothing away from the weight of its content. I believe the questions “The Mountain in the Sea” poses will linger with me for years to come.
It has been probably twelve years since I finished a book front to back, and this one was so good that it pushed me to write about it, and start this newsletter. It feels like the clear ecological conclusion of my “Egg” philosophy: that we are all connected, all one, and all simply looking for a way to communicate with each other. Whether human, octopus, or AI, we are all simply seeking to be seen by each other. Where does the egg end? Am I every human, or am I also every octopus? Why stop there? Am I every blade of grass, bird in the sky, and cow I eat? Don’t they, like me, just want to know our place in this world? We want to be seen, respected… blueprint of the universe, even if we as humanity doesn’t yet understand what it means for a blade of grass to “want.”
Now, I am neither a pacifist nor a vegan. I love bacon and cheeseburgers. I believe that when words fail, action is needed. I have a dog that I feed dry dog kibble. My best friend and I believe we would make great warlords in the apocalypse while my partner refuses to get involved in any warlord speculation (by the way my warlord theme would be music. I control all post-apocalypse music. Our community is a safe haven to just chill and listen to music, but when we go to war, we blast Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin, which is terrifying in a world without music, so we claim decisive victory). So maybe in the end I am just a hypocrite. Or maybe it just means I'm still evolving. It means I can't stop asking questions and seeking answers through communication with people smarter, wiser than me to become a better version of myself. I’ll never be perfect, but with each connection, I will continue to evolve beyond the person I was a minute before. Little by little, I advance a bit further, connect a little deeper with each turn. And I hope that when the octopi rise from the oceans, they will be kinder than we were to them. I hope they look not to the sushi that I ate, but the good I did to others… to myself.
Non-Required Reading
Finally listened to Zach Bryan’s self-titled album and experienced all the feels.
If you’re a fan of action/horror animated series then go check out “Castlevania” on Netflix. A new spin off series just started entitled “Castlevania: Nocturne,” but it is the perfect time to start the original.
After watching all six “Scream” movies in the past week, I can safely say it is the best horror movie series. No other horror series retains such quality over six movies.
“No One Will Save You” on Hulu is a new alien-centric horror movie with the unique twist that it has no dialog. Just you and the fantastic score on a terrifying odyssey as the film’s quirky manic pixie dream girl main character is assaulted by aliens.
Can someone help me learn how to play “Ace Attorney”? I’m playing through the original game for the first time and it is legitimately making me question my choice in occupation.