"I don't know about Skinner, but I'm glad you feel rewarded," she said. "Now let's get to work and practice some PK. See if you can teleport this pebble at my feet."
I looked at the pebble she was pointing at and decided that since it was very small it should be an easy place to start. I reached out with imaginary fingers to pick it up. It didn't budge.
"You're trying too hard," Carol suggested. "Relax your mind by remembering your Macro contact experience."
After a couple of minutes of recalling how I almost lost Macro contact I stopped trying, to the best of my ability, and found my mind blissfully serene. I gently reached out for the pebble and easily raised it to eye level. Then I made it dance and weave through the air about us. For the next few minutes I experienced the strange joy of successfully using PK.
I probably would have gone on to larger objects if I hadn't become aware of a rapidly increasing weariness that seemed to be creeping through my body. I dropped the pebble.
Carol smiled wistfully. "Now you know what I meant about becoming tired. Since you have so recently experienced Macro contact you can probably counteract the fatigue by again recalling the experience. Give it a try."
I decided that I was just too tired to stand up any longer, so I lay down on the soft, sweet-smelling grass and tried to follow Carol's suggestion. My fatigue seemed to interfere and it was several moments before a strong memory of free-flowing, accepting Macro contact succeeded in restoring much of my vitality.
I got slowly to my feet.
"All right," I said, "I've learned my lesson: don't overdo in practicing Macro powers."
Carol looked at me for a minute, then said, "How do you feel? Now that most of your energy is restored, would you like to practice some more?"
"No," I answered. "I really think I'd better wait until later." It was then that I realized that the memory of my Macro contact had been so pleasant and soothing that I no longer had any desire to practice my Macro powers.
"That's right," Carol said, obviously practicing her telepathy. "The memory of Macro contact can restore your energy, but it can also leave you so pleasantly satiated that any desire to put forth the effort necessary for Macro practice is greatly diminished."
"My God!" I exclaimed. "That's what you meant when you all said that the more Macro contacts you had, the less desire you had for growth and change!"
"Yes, that's right," Carol replied, "but this is only true at the lower-Macro levels. Once you've reached level nine it hardly applies, and by level ten you are completely free of any micro desire to avoid the failure-success patterns of all growth and learning."
I forced myself to try moving the pebble again and began bouncing it along ahead of us as we continued our walking.
Carol took my hand and kissed it lightly. "See, they were right! You do have more desire than anyone else." Then she laughed and said, "You're such a good influence on me that I'll help you practice, then you won't tire out so soon." With these words she began taking turns with me at bouncing the pebble along before us.
For the next few minutes we continued this very relaxed type of simple PK usage, and while I felt some weariness beginning to return, it wasn't so awesomely overpowering as before. We ended our PK practice as we topped a slight rise and walked through an opening in a large broad-leafed hedge. There before us was the first triad playground which, I later realized, was about a quarter of a mile directly behind our Gamma building.
The huge playground was a two-hundred-yard square enclosed by the stream that surrounded it. The stream was punctuated by waterfalls and ponds with broad expanses of sand about them. An array of children's exercise devices, some of which resembled what I knew as jungle gyms, dotted the playground, making me wish I was about one fourth my size so I could enjoy the thrill of the pipe-slide or of going hand-over-hand from one end of the fifty-foot horizontal ladder to the other.
Carol surprised me by saying that such playgrounds do exist for adults in every Gamma location, emphasizing the fun and importance of adult physical play.
There were balls, blocks, and lots of various-sized and shaped toys and learning devices that I had never seen before.
While there were about a hundred children between the ages of six weeks and three years, I was surprised to see that the adults seemed to outnumber the children almost two to one.
Sensing my surprise, Carol reminded me that everyone in the first four triads had older brothers and sisters assigned to them from the older triads. In the third and fourth triads, Alpha mates shared the same "brother and sister," who were usually Alpha mates themselves. However, in the first and second triads each child had five elder brothers and sisters of his own assigned only from the eighth, ninth, and tenth triads, along with some other older non-student volunteers.
As we walked about the playground I was reminded that even back in the mid-20th century psychologists know that for maximum mental and physical growth children need far more than just adequate nutrition. However, in the 20th century one out of three children was permanently damaged by poor nutrition alone. Beyond food, though, were the three psychological requirements: loving acceptance, verbal stimulation with intelligent older children and adults, and opportunities for unrestricted exploration. These last two were frequently summarized as "richly varied mental and physical stimuli."
Yes, I thought, the knowledge for Macro growth had been available in the 20th century, but micro man neither desired nor believed in its development. Even psychologists and psychiatrists were often unable to provide loving acceptance to their very own children. This was largely due to their unquestioning acceptance of the limited micro theory that we, as adults, are the pawns of our early experiences.
I smiled as I recalled the standing comment at our universities that anyone who got a Ph.D. had to really hate himself to put up with all that crap. And it was certainly true that a person could get a Ph.D. and still know practically nothing about how to actually live a healthy, balanced life. What's more, with a Ph.D. he could avoid practicing therapeutic mental-health concepts by spending the rest of his life teaching them to others. I remembered another famous line that said, "Those who can, do... and those who can't, teach." After twenty some years of formal micro education I was inclined to believe there was some truth in this saying.
While wandering about the play area I had received telepathic messages of welcome from all the older brothers and sisters. I was surprised at the intelligence and physical dexterity of these youngsters of the first triad.
"It's hard to believe," I said to Carol, "that none of these children is even three years old."
"Yes," Carol nodded, "we have proved that with adequate nutrition, plus generous amounts of the three psychological requirements that you were just thinking about, both mental and physical growth can increase many times faster than micro man ever supposed possible.
"But now let's go on to the second triad learningplay area," she suggested.
We walked through another opening in the densely growing hedge that surrounded the first triad learningplay area and walked about a hundred yards through the park until we came to another seemingly impenetrable hedge. Finding an opening, we entered the second triad area, which I discovered was at least twice as large as the first triad learning-play area had been.
Again I was struck by the wide variety of learning devices scattered about this huge recreation area. Of course, the devices were generally much more complicated and included construction materials for making miniature Gamma complexes, complete with materials for constructing extremely complex dolls. The junglegym type of climbing and swinging apparatus was more extensive and covered with small children swinging with the agility of monkeys through a maze of bars reaching over fifty feet into the air.