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The interview went about as well as it could. He didn’t seem to have a problem
with the fact that I didn’t have a résumé. I spent so much time traveling the
bulk, and dealing with all sorts of wildly different people, I almost forgot
how unusual I am. I’m neurodivergent, which doesn’t mean much in the extreme
diversity of the multiverse, but it matters here. The reason I’ve been saying
this planet is boring is not just because the headlines are pussycat tame
compared to the kind I’m used to, but people seem to be mostly humorless too.
At least when people back home would make absolutely dreadful approximations
of jokes, I knew that they were trying. They wanted to be funny, they just
weren’t very good at it. Metaphor, simile, analogy, hyperbole; these all go
over these people’s heads. By that I mean, you failed to comprehend it, not
that an object moved over your physical head. I told the interviewer that I’ve
been to a thousand parks in my day, and he wanted to see my log of them, which
he assumed I would need in order to come to such a precise figure. He didn’t
understand that I didn’t mean it literally. I’ve just been to a lot, but
probably still under a hundred, I don’t know. When I explained as much, he
understood, so these people are not like Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy
franchise. They don’t have to take things literally, but it’s not intuitive
for them to pick up on things like sarcasm and emotional nuance, and they have
to think about it for a moment once you clarify. Fortunately, they also don’t
seem perturbed about it, like the society in The Giver, which emphasizes
something called precision of language. Listen to me, making pop culture
references that you don’t get, because these stories don’t exist here. I guess
that’s what I’ll do with my time. You do have fiction here, but it’s got to be
different than the kind in other worlds if they’re more about just telling the
story, and less about the poetry. Hopefully I hear back from the garden soon.
I’m ready to get my hands dirty. Just so you understand, getting one’s hands
dirty is an idiomatic expression that usually means being able to put in the
work to accomplish something, rather than just sitting by and letting others
do it. It can sometimes mean doing something bad, but it doesn’t have to. In
my case, it’s to be taken seriously, though, so don’t worry. Gardening is
dirty work.
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