When I was thirteen or so my aunt lent me a book that affected me in a profound way. I mean in a challenging me to be a different person, here is a blueprint or at least guidelines way. So much stuff to think about, a different way, shit, I mean really different. The book was Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.

The 1961 novel presents Valentine Michael Smith, an orphaned human born on Mars and raised by Martians. He is the ultimate outsider; through him Heinlein can critique humanity and present an alternative view of what might be.

The book is in some ways prophetic in its pronouncements. In its pages, there is a huge megachurch that has an extreme political influence on American and world politics. There is polyamory of a sort. There are metaphysical ideas associated with wiccan and other nontraditional religions. There are what was once quaintly called “New Age” ideas and propositions.

In the book Heinlein, does not appear to believe in any sexual repression or present any judgement on non-monogamous sex. He does appear to believe in love, in attachment. His idea of love is both wider than traditional ideas yet does have boundaries. He presents a group marriage where all the participants are bonded and intensely and openly love each other. They never have sex until the love connection is there. No one just pops around.

The socialization Smith receives from the Martians leaves him with a unique sense of time. He never hurries. He waits for the correct timing. However, his waiting is not passive. He waits actively, though as someone who never talked to a Martian I am unsure of how to do this.

What he is waiting for is to grok. Grok is a Martian word meaning to understand, to become one with in any imaginable way. When you eat a hamburger, you grok with it. When you understand and empathize with another’s grief you grok with them. When you love someone you grok them and they you, hopefully.

Smith never hurries the grokking. He is often presented with some new ideas and concepts that he has to store them in his mind at times and leave the grokking for later. He spends time thinking things over, trying to understand, empathize, conceptualize to come to know things comprehensively, completely, inside and out.

My teen self was a mess. I mean I still am but I had no models, no techniques at that time for dealing with the crap arising from feeling insecure, being gay, and needing some deep love of myself as I was.  The idea of slowing down and taking time to understand something, a la Martian Smith, was a direction of sorts, a way to sorting out my messy self. I tried to think things over to grok them. Not that I could maintain that all the time. My life was too hectic, too disorganized. My family dynamics were fucked up. But that’s another post. This idea of slowing down and thinking things through became a touchstone for my sense of self. Though it was not a panacea, it was a start.

Another concept in the novel is “Thou art God”. Smith translates a pivotal Martian word as “Thou art God”. Though the notion is somewhat nebulous, the word/phrase refers to the fact anyone alive, anything alive, or even anything interacting in this universe is a creator, a unique divine creating Self unto themselves, a divinity of a sort, full of control over the universe around them. We are all, to paraphrase of the burning bush, being because we are, arising in a conceptual twist, existing because we exist. To a teenager with jumping boundaries and people pleasing in his crunchy heart, the idea that I was a divine separate self was ground breaking or rather ground building. A divine self uniquely my own but one I could share with others, too. A self full of energy and life, creating the world around me.

Grok and “Thou art God” are two sides of a complete existence. The idea of connection with others and yet maintaining one’s Self is central to the idea of a full and authentic personhood. Those Martians seem to have the right balance. I want to be a Martian.