This week in class, we explored the different themes in the book Stars in my Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Something that stood out to me in the book was that RAT Korga was sought out by everyone because he was a “survivor”. They were curious for many reasons. He was very different from everyone else because he did not have a GI. The GI gave everyone access to cultural knowledge, which helped them be more integrated and understand each other. Mark was nervous every time RAT Korga interacted with another human or other species because he was unaware of the social standards. I think it is interesting to think of how a GI system would work in our world. Although it seems as if having “perfect knowledge” would be ideal because of the information given to make certain decisions, it takes away one’s privacy. Privacy to me is very important because people are opt to act certain ways to make themselves look better or to fit in to what society considers “normal”. Privacy allows an individual to explore and find out who they really are when nobody is looking.
With this dependency on others and a loss of individualism, it made me realize that if I was a survivor of some catastrophic event, I would question why I am not dead. Although this is a pessimistic view, it is very real and happens to people all the time. In war, soldiers suffer from PTSD because of all of the gruesome and painful times they suffered through. They create a connection between the people that they are with, and when they become the last one standing, they often feel lost. I would also feel very frustrated and would not see the point in continuing life. If everyone you knew and loved had died, it would be extremely hard to build new relationships. This occurs when RAT Korga leaves Mark and Mark feels like nothing else compares to him. I would also feel anger towards the world because it seems unfair for your loved ones to be taken away. I guess it also just really depends on what kind of person you are. If you are a person that does not need anyone, you would have other feelings. The other side of this situation is that a survivor would be given a new chance to start over, build new relationships. If they had problems or hardships in the past, those could potentially be replaced. I feel like people would not judge you as much, they would only praise you and think highly of you because of how you were able to come out of such a situation where everyone else died.