As the science fiction text Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler continues on, the story shows how Lauren and some others began to truly interact with the world outside of what they were accustomed to before the events that lead them to survive and journey outside in the neighborhood. As Lauren progresses as an outsider now she starts to feel more and the actions she commits has an effect on her empathy as well. She assembles and gathers people who want to live and are good as well to be apart of her group and that is where she starts teaching and introducing to them the fundamentals of her belief system called Earthseed.

As Lauren and her family is resting peacefully one night, an invasion happens that was caused by the people from outside of the walls. They ended up burning down houses and killing the people for their goods. As Lauren gets attacked by one of the people, she actually ends up killing the attacker despite the hyperempathy she possesses. According to the book it says: “I shot him again, terrified that his pain would immobilize me when he did feel it. It seemed that he took a long time to die.”(154). In this situation that Lauren encounters an enemy her hyperempathy is put to the test because she was in a life or death situation. Even though she felt a lot of pain from killing the man that tried to kill her, she realizes that despite the fact of feeling for others her own survival is more essential because she is the type of person living in a bad world who has compassion.

Lauren’s beliefs and views that she calls Earthseed was a concept that was created and thought up by her because of the experiences she has been through and observed. Also she based it from her own understanding and as she tries to convince her group of people to embrace themselves in it, they became a community in which despite being different genders or races they still found sanctuary within one another. According to the book it says: “Embrace Diversity Or be destroyed”(196). This was one of the saying from the teachings of Earthseed and in this saying it emphasizes that if people learn to accept one another despite the differences they can live in harmony and also they can be able to fight well against what can threaten them as well. In the community they embrace concepts like this because that was what made them survive as a group and also learn to respect one another and be able to be different in a world where it is filled with a harsh reality surrounding them.

As Lauren and her group continues to progress in their travels they observe various disturbing events that they find to be horrific and think that why would the world be in a state like that. According to the book it says: “You keep up a steady pace, keep your eyes open, and try to look both too intimidating to bother and invisible.”(272). This quote is describing that in order to travel through cities, you would have to do it in a certain way so you can be safe and avoid dangerous situations. This symbolizes that in the world there is hardly anywhere that is safe and those places that are actually safer, people would still have to be careful and go easy when trying to survive.