This is the public log of DeeDee 'dzyjak' Jackson, a fictional character. DeeDee lives and works aboard a space station which orbits Saturn, and sometimes he writes about it.

2006-02-09

Borrowing Silence

I may have mentioned that I don't much like driving grip-loaders. Back on Ceres Station, the local brain-tech called it 'Optic Vertigo,' pointed at his eyes and said, "It's all in your head." Then he had a big laugh while he wrote up a prescription for desensitization. I hated him for months, but he told me a couple of things which I later decided made him a friend.

  1. "Think about all the things you could be doing which are worse."
  2. and, "Stop looking into deep empty space you stupid monkey."

The first one is easy to do. My favorite thing to think about is the noisy intoxicated meaningless noise from boredom parties... I'd rather die slowly in vacuum than go to those things, and that always makes me feel a bit better about riding an ion stream capable of taking me into complete emptiness.

Not looking into space... Believe it or not, it helps if you close your eyes. At least you don't expect to see anything when you do that. If you have to open your eyes to move or do some work, keep your eyes on the helmet displays and your own hands. Simple to say.

As for noisy parties... One specific get-together provided enough negative shielding to get me through seven days of vac-scout recon work in the Ten-Ten asteroid cluster. There is nothing quieter than a single person ion-drive vac-suit. Even grip-loaders are noisy by comparison. And the silence I found out there almost made up for every bead of sweat I produced during that week.

We space dwellers live inside of machines... big, noisy, non-stop machines... and when the rhythms change, we get a bit cranky. These launch platforms, infinitely better than nothing for providing weight, are very very noisy. People have been complaining (Not to me, because I encourage Curious to laugh at them.)

Me? I have decided that if noisy parties can get me through Optical Vertigo, then the silence of space can get me through a few weeks of variable gravity and whimpering, groaning station noises.

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