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T I K I T I A N
I M P R I N T S
T H E S C R I P T
W h a t T i k i t i a n
I m p r i n t s i s
A b o u t
Tikitian Imprints is about the fact that humans, regardless of the
time they existed and the place where they lived, remain basically
the same person with the same worries and fears and same set of
inner conflicts and achieved compromises. It is also about how only
four common universal experiences in humans' lives form the basis of
their inner conflicts, complex thoughts and diverse behaviors.
Tikitian Imprints, in other words, is an autobiography of Mankind.
It is a blend of history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and
philosophy and is colored by suspense, curiosity, mystery, humor and
emotional moments. That autobiography is demonstrated through the
life story of Habi, the protagonist of the story. Habi is an
Adam-like character or some form of a prototype of all humans who
spends a life time struggling, at first to survive, then to lead
others and finally to come to terms with the inevitable ending of
his life. The inciting incident that starts the story is the
beginning of the existence of Habi in the world and his realization
that his body has needs. Whenever he fulfills a need, another one
shows up to his awareness and in that process, Habi's life treks
through different worlds, adventures and experiences giving the
story several climaxes and resolutions.
The timing of the story is thousands of years ago although it
starts with an epilogue of people living in the present time "Around
the World in Eight Persons" and closes up with them too in the last
two pages of the book. The setting of the story is in Kenya,
specifically in Tikita and Hikanda, two imaginary pieces of lands in
Southern Kenya. The first half of the story takes place in Tikita
where the primitive hunter-gatherer family (Habi's family) lived and
the second half takes places in Hikanda to where Habi and his family
move and merge with a more civilized community subsisting on farming
and animal husbandry. There is hardly any verbal language used in
communication during the greater part of the Tikitian phase of the
story. Verbal language is introduced when the Habi family moves to
Hikanda and even ripens to eloquent platonic dialogues later that
reveal the story's themes. This adds to the contrast between the
primitive start of people's lives and the rather civilized form that
it comes to takes up later.
Characters: The main characters in the story with prominent
presence, in addition to Habi, are Sheeba, his woman, and Watuna,
Auna and Noah his closest friends. Other minor characters in the
story include Kahana the leader of Hikanda, Habi's kids and Habi's
neighbors, Roola and Ana. All of the characters in the story serve
the protagonist. They are flashlights aimed at him from different
directions to illuminate different facets of his personality. They
come into conflict with him to allow him to reveal himself via
action and conflict. The stimulation and the supervision of his
maturity are specially demonstrated in the thoughtful, philosophical
and humorous dialogues and interactions between him and the novel's
two mentors, Auna and Watuna.
Philosophy and Message behind Tikitian Imprints
Tikitian Imprints is 15 chapters of life and 1 chapter of
afterlife;
Life: At the very early beginnings of human
existence on earth, humans perceived themselves as basically pieces
of flesh. At that time, humans hadn't enough time to question why or
how they came to existence since those pieces of flesh, their
bodies, distracted them and stormed their lives with their lots of
needs. And since existence in that world was their only concrete
reality, humans strived, and still do, to fulfill those needs and
preserve or prolong their corporeal existence.
For corporeal life to be sustained, we need to fulfill two
categories of needs.
Our number one category of needs is food, water and safe shelter.
There are 3 steps to achieve them:
1.We have to move around to gather and acquire our food, we have to
seek safe caves to hide from beasts and Nature's mood swings and we
better be the smarter type of humans who manage to manipulate Nature
to their benefits.
2.We should be affiliated to other people, to a society; if you are
part of and in good bondage with a clan of other human beings, you
will definitely enjoy a safer quality of life as you will all
altogether be better able to face the threat of beast attacks for
example. But, at an individual level, to reach that affiliation is
not without (a) overcoming the stress of accepting to live with
people who, too, just like you, consume food and hence lessen food
resources more quickly and, in turn, might threaten the land's food
stores and potentials, (b) proving to other people that you, too, is
worthy of being incorporated in their clan, that you are useful
enough, otherwise you will be regarded as only a harmful food
consumer and would be extinguished from the society.
3.Since we cannot avoid our ultimate deaths, we should at least have
some way or philosophy to deal with or face or accept the
unavoidable universal human destiny of an ultimate death that puts
to an end our corporeal existence.
Our number two category of needs is sex. To acquire that in a world
with so many men and women, a man, for example, will have to compete
with other men to gain the acceptance and affections of the woman
that he likes or pursues and vice versa.
Afterlife: Having fulfilled those needs, humans get enough
leisure of time to question the reasons why they came here to that
planet and how and whether there was something more significant to
live for than the serving of needy bodies and start to guess there
might be a powerful intelligence behind the creation of that world.
Mythology and/or faith in God operate at that level.
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Beat Sheet
A bullet-point list of the main actions and events in Tikitian
Imprints
Based upon the above hypothesis and philosophy, Tikitian Imprints
has been sectioned or partitioned into four major and rather
distinct parts about life each standing for one of the
above-mentioned common universal human experiences (1: you exist, 2:
among others, 3: either as a man or a woman; 4: and you know in the
end you inevitably die). In each part, there is elaboration on the
ways how that station contributed to phenotypic human behavior the
way we see it today. A fifth and last part about afterlife ends the
story and resolves the previous four climaxes again.
Part one (chapters 2 and 3): We start as bodies striving to
exist and survive by food, water and safe shelter
Part two (chapters 4 to 11): Each one of us does not exist
alone. There are other humans too who exist and who although they
compete with us for the same food that we eat yet at the same time
can cooperate with us to face threats of wild animals so that we
all, together, can live safer lives.
Part three (chapters 12 and13): Sex instincts compel men and
women to seek each other's companionships for its fulfillment. The
sex desire or need is just like the food need in that it is
constantly recurring no matter how fulfilled at any one single time
it is. We know that hunger, being constantly recurring after a
certain half-life of feeling full, compels humans to always secure
they possess or have some access to their next meals even when they
are full and not hungry now. Likewise, when it comes to the sex
desire, humans will probably need to ensure they can fulfill that
sex need later even if they already had their enough of it now.
Practically speaking, limiting sex partners and even having stable
and secure monogamous types of relationships with the implied deal
of exclusive devotion of the man and woman to each other will always
be more practical than men, for example, going out for random women
hunt whenever they feel the need for women as that later practice
will carry the risks of either offering too much and unneeded
availability of women at times or no availability at all at other
times.
Part four (chapter 14): Each human being knows he will
someday inevitably die.
Part five (chapters 15 and 16): The place of faith in our
lives and how it could release us from the reigns of our bodies and
their needs and also how it could create and supervise a peaceful
societal life on earth if smart human laws and codes fail to do the
job.
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