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A few updates: the book, America, and kindness

3/1/2025

Originally sent February 10, 2025

"I've been reading and learning about cults, high control religions, and the ongoing impacts these can have on those who grow up within in, even if they make it out. This book, while a futuristic parable, nonetheless shows the insidiousness of the messaging, and the confusion a person feels when they are starting to question everything they were taught to believe. While the ending of this book feels abrupt to me as a reader, it rings true in the sense that it's the end of Paige's story in New Standard. Whatever comes next? Is unknown.

A recommended read."

Thanks to Dee Morgan for the review on LibraryThing!

It's dark times, y'all. But you know what's cool? Reading. Books. Perseverance. (Both the spacecraft and the concept.)

I want to start out with a massive thank you to those of you who were able to make it to the release party on January 4th! It was a fantastic night of friends connecting with friends, and it was so, so needed as a way to kick off the year.

Book launch: Four people standing in a bookstore talking to each other. Two people are holding a copy of VESSEL by Rie Lee.

Photo credit: Adriana Redditt

I was hoping that the high of getting to put this book out in the world and having the privilege of folks in my community read it would last a little longer. But of course, we couldn't have that. I'm sure it's because we're all sinners or whatever. Sodom and Gomorrah and all that jazz.

There are plenty of high-control groups out there that will use that exact rhetoric to describe the fires that plagued my community over the past month and the massive devastation it caused to the land and the people who live on and care for it: that we were impure and therefore deserved it. That, among other things, our penchant for ensuring that the diversity of our communities can flourish by way of equity and inclusion is an everlasting plague that should continue to hurt us until we surrender to the oligarchy that uses extremist patriarchal religion to control and harm all of us.

And right now, I want to be clear: that rhetoric is being utilized right now by the United States Federal Government. Right now, the US Government is a high-control group, no question.

Pushing back on these ideas is exhausting but necessary. The more I experience the collection of humans in Washington, DC plotting the demise of any labor-valuing system, the more frustrated I get with the demonization of anyone but that collection of humans. The more I start to consciously think about what we all have in common, the more I realize that what I want for myself is also what I want for others who might be across the political aisle. I want people to make more money and take away some of the capital being horded by our current powers-that-be. I want people to feel like they're in charge of their lives and their religious beliefs. I want people to have solid homes and access to good education for their kids. I want them to have a savings account and all of the basic necessities of life without having to hustle with three jobs.

I'm trying, lately, to try to create a sense of power for myself by way of finding basic commonality with my fellow humans, regardless of political affiliation. We're all suffering now; all of us are subject to price gouging and the vulnerabilities that come with losing workers' protections and healthcare. We are in a high-control environment right now, and that high-control environment has affected our neighbors and friends and family members. The best way to combat a high-control environment is to create a calm, safe space free of judgment.