Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [2267]

But Lauren Olamina says that since change is the one inescapable truth, change is the basic clay of our lives. In order to live constructive lives, we must learn to shape change when we can and yield to it when we must. Either way, we must learn and teach, adapt and grow. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 2267

Note

A precisely worded distinction between resignation and agency: the metaphor of change as clay (a material that is worked, not merely suffered) sets up the two-part ethic — shape when you can, yield when you must — and the flat ‘either way’ refuses to treat surrender as failure. This is the theological engine of the novel compressed into three sentences, and the parallel verbs at the end turn doctrine into instruction.