Stephen's Secure Blog #113
These stories about Stephen began was when he was 10 years old, and
moving to a new part of the country to attend a special school for
gifted students, in the 1950's. This was from a time before computers
would fit on a desk, and when people communicated with friends in other
countries by actual letters sent through the postal service. He wrote
225 of them to a friend. He stopped writing to his penpal, but found he
still wanted to record his life, in case he lost his memory again, and
wrote 30 entries in his first logbook. Then he wrote to an artificial
intelligence called Geenee, in the master computer in his school for
gifted students, which he started attending in 2016. Now it's after
2018, and he's continuing to save his memories in a secure blog.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
The stories may not be posted in chronological order.
Stephen is 14 in this story, in the Fall of year 5 of his special
school.
Stephen's Secure Blog #113 "Navajo Question"
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Sharon called me and asked for a meeting. I went right over. She
asked me to sit, and we talked. She said "I've had experts on the
subject review your Mongol painting. They agree it's authentic in every
detail. Well, except for one, who all think is an absolute idiot." I
laughed. I said "I like your humor, too. Laughing is the second
happiest exercise." She smiled and said, "You don't have to tell me
what the first is." I grinned. She said "Can you do paintings like that
for your other past lives?" I said "Sure, but most wouldn't be as
recognizable or dramatic. There is something else I can do like that,
which I have trouble myself believing is possible. When I'm deep in the
artistic mood, and I'm drawing or painting a person or people live,
sometimes I can paint their past, and even their past lives. This has
been verified when it happened the first time at a Navajo festival.
Then I was made officially one of them, and their official chronicling
artist." She was amazed, and said, "Wow!" I nodded and said. "Some of
my paintings for them have extra features which they will keep private
to their nation."
She said "We were planning to increase our exhibit of Native American
"Yes, I can. But I would have to visit with the different tribes and
nations to get to know them. AND have their permission to do it. Some
might object to a very paleface artist representing them, which I would
understand. There are two things which can help with that. I will know
their languages, and I could have with me a Navajo Shaman, to introduce
me. All that is if they want to cooperate with the Smithsonian. Before
you ask any of them, I need to ask somebody, myself." I contacted Hawk
and pushed my memory of the meeting to him. He said he would ask his
father and get back to me. I said to Sharon, "I can do illustrations
for practically anything. What I don't know for a particular subject, I
will learn it. Pick any book from your library here, and I'll show
you." She picked one, and started to hand it to me. I said "That's
alright, I just read it as you were choosing it. Pick a page and I'll
tell you what it says." She did, and I did that. She said "Wow!" I
grinned. I said "I like to learn. REALLY like." She said "You must!"
I said "A member of the Navajo Tribal Council would like to meet with
you. Here, or at his home, or anyplace else you want. I recommend his
home, because it's full of my art. We can go there any time you like,
in a fraction of a second. Two of his children are in my group, and he
knows some of what we do. I just spoke with my friend Hawk, and he
asked his father." She said "I think I'm overloading. You work fast!" I
said "Efficient. We do a lot of things all the time, so we have to work
efficiently. And we divide our minds to use multiple concurrent
processes. I'm doing many other things as we speak. Or as I speak, and
you say wow." She laughed. She said "I have no appointments the rest of
the day. After I tell my secretary something more possible, I can be
ready to do with you whatever it is you do." I said "They are in
Arizona, and ready." She made her arrangements, and then I said, "This
time, now that you're more experienced, we'll travel a little
differently. We stand together, and ready?" She said "Ready!" I ported
us to the RedCloud living room. I made introductions, and they talked.
I didn't, until the end, when Hawk's father said to me, "What do you
think about this?"
I said "To start, I like Sharon. She's been to my house far away, and
seen my art. She has some of my things in her museum and in her office,
and she knows something of who we are and what we do, and WHY I do what
I do with my art for the future. I think it's a good thing to share the
Navajo ways with the rest of the world. We all know they sure do need
something better than they have right now!" He laughed and said,
"That's our Astah-Ho-Ya!" He said to Sharon, "That means Wise Eagle."
She said "Appropriate." He said "And why do you do that?" She said for
me, "He's trying to make himself and our world show the galaxy we are
good people who appreciate good sportsmanship and culture, so they will
like us when we join them someday." He looked surprised and then
respectful, and said, "I should have expected that of him. Hawk, why
didn't you tell me?" He said "We do a lot of things. If I tried to tell
you everything, we wouldn't have time to eat or sleep. Anyway, what
Stephen does, is for him to tell, not me." His father nodded approval.
Sharon said "Oh, did I speak out of turn?" I said "Yes, but very well,
and what I was going to say, so no harm done." She was relieved.
I said to Hawk's father, "In a few years, Rose and I are going to
tell the Galactic Council what we will have done about the Van. I'm
arranging for support among the major planets, by showing how good and
nice we are, which is working very well, so they won't be terrified of
us when we look a little more effective than they are." He said with a
grin, "You mean, not scare the pants off them, when they find out
something of what you can do. Those who wear pants." We grinned, and I
said, "Most don't, and think we are stupid for wearing them, and
completely ridiculous to cover up while swimming, to which I agree."
He said "Well, I don't see the appeal." I said "You would FEEL the
appeal, when you don't have clothes on, and you hug a woman who is
covered with very soft fur." He said "I can imagine." Hawk said, "No,
Dad, you can't. Believe me!" He said "Well, just don't tell your
mother." They grinned at each other. Sharon was very amused. I said "I
would like Sharon to see my art you have here." He said "The Tribal
Council would have to approve of that, for what belongs to them." I
said "Right. That's your er, assignment, if you agree. But the family
I would." I said to Hawk, "A good leader and Situation Manager prefers
to delegate what is appropriate to the individual, and is most likely
to be accepted. When you know that what you ask for will be given, it's
a lot easier to ask. The more you do it that way, the more likely they
are to do for you what they would have otherwise refused, when you need
them to. Thinking ahead, is a good way to help keep it attached to your
shoulders." He grinned. His father said to Sharon, "Stephen uses
practically everything to teach something." She said "This is one of
the very few times with him that I'm not surprised." They laughed.
We went to the den, where they had my art. She saw the wood carving,
and almost popped her eyes out. I said "Don't ask me how I do that,
because all I know is, it takes a whole lot of love. That's not the
kind of thing which the too curious public should see." She said
"That's a real shame, but I understand. It's still a masterpiece."
Hawk's father said, "We think so." They showed her the other art. She
said "Are there any of these I can have to show the trustees?" I said
fast, "No. I can make similar things, but what is here is for family
only. Let me explain. In this incarnation, my father abandoned me when
I was two years old and dying, and my mother dead. I have a guardian,
who you met. I have foster parents. All those people who are a
substitute family for me, are my former students, and I am their leader
now, too, so it's not all that real to me. THIS family impossibly
accepted me as one of their own. The entire Navajo nation did. They
made me belong. We are loyal to each other, not by accident of birth,
but by loving CHOICE. I will do nothing to go against that." They all
hugged me, even Sharon. I wiped my tears with my sleeve and announced,
fingering it, "The only thing they're good for." Some surprised
laughter.
Hawk said to me, "I have to tell them about my talking out of turn
mistake with our statue. I'll be careful." I nodded. He said "A few
months ago, when Stephen was making an important art presentation in a
far away place, Rose and I were with him, because he likes to have as
many of us as possible have experience with him on these trips. I got
carried away by the moment, and suggested he show our Mongol Warrior.
The customer, the President of the most important of those places, was
very interested, but had to be disappointed when Stephen said to me
that it was for family only. I made a BIG mistake, and almost ruined
his presentation his agent had planned with him. Stephen was firm then,
and patient after it at his house, in explaining it, but I knew he was
as upset as I had ever seen him. It's hard for other people to realize
that Stephen is the most intelligent person anywhere we know of, by a
factor of 8, and that he plans everything very carefully, and sometimes
every word. I learned a lot more about him in action later, so I know
this for real now. I know the president would have bought the Mongol
for a lot of money which Stephen needed to be in the bank there to help
finance a school. I knew it was for family only, but I forgot. I put
him in a bad spot then, but now I know how much it involved his
personal feelings, too. Stephen, I'm very sorry I did that!" He cried,
and I hugged him. I said "We are created with the ability to learn from
our mistakes. So we shouldn't waste that by not making any." He said
thank you for telling us. It reinforces how bad it could have been with
what I said about what he is doing for us. I learned my lesson better
with your help. What Stephen just said, shows how right you are about
him." They hugged.
Hawk's father said, "I'll speak with the Council. Hawk, you will be
with me. If they ask for Stephen, he will come." I said to Sharon, "I
think we should wait for the results of that. I can still illustrate
anything else you want, either using references, my memory, or my
strange way of er, sucking images out of the past." She said "I'll find
work for you, for sure." Hawk's father said to her, "Would you stay for
supper? My wife is visiting friends, but when she comes home and finds
out I didn't invite you, and she missed meeting you, well, I don't even
want to think what will happen." She laughed and said, "I have to
accept. May I use your phone? Mine is back in my purse at my office." I
ported her purse to my hand and gave it to her. She thanked me and said
to her secretary, "You know of the artist who made the lions and the
painting on my wall? I'm with him and his family now, trying to recruit
him to do some illustrations for us. I'm being arm-twisted, very
unnecessarily, to have supper with them, so I won't be back in the
office today. Thanks. Have a good night." I said "I hope her office
phone doesn't have caller ID." She grinned and said, "It doesn't."
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Grant
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