Those of us from Chasm started calling it the Visitor because that's a relatively comfortable label. It implies the stay is temporary, that the thing… - Sheri S. Tepper

I was a free person."
"Free to what?"
"To…to do anything I wanted to."
Jory laughed, shaking her head. "Weren't you told as a child that one way was better than another, one belief better than another? Weren't you told some things were higher and some lower? That some things were suitable for women, others for men? That your God was more powerful? That your religion was truer? That your language was more expressive? That your customs had more heart, or more soul? That your cooking tasted better? That your way of child-rearing was preferable? That all your ways were so much better than others ways that you would die to keep yours as they were, or die to destroy others if they seemed threatening? Weren't you taught not to change, not to adapt, not to become anything different? Weren't you taught the word 'loyalty'? The word 'tradition'? Didn't they tell you that animals were higher than vegetables, mammals were higher than other animals, man was higher than other mammals, and your kind of man was higher than other men?
"You think you weren't enslaved by that? You think you had freedom of choice? I have said this to Fringe, I say it to you: A man's choice becomes his son's duty and his grandson's tradition! Thus men assure enslavement of their progeny.

"I don't have much confidence," she said. "A lot of what I've been taught isn't making sense."
"That's the nature of teaching. Something happens, and intelligence first apprehends it, then makes up a rule about it, then tries to pass the rule along. Very small beings invariably operate in that way. However, by the time the information is passed on, new things are happening that the old rule doesn't fit. Eventually intelligence learns to stop making rules and understand the flow."

They were always telling me their way is the only way to go!"
"Oh, no, my dear. No, not at all. So long as it harms no one else, one's own way is always preferable.