fandomhigh | Ye Shall Be As Gods?

"I am Dr. Juli Mizrahi," she said once everyone had settled down, "and welcome to Ye Shall Be As Gods? For however long I am your teacher I expect to be referred to as Dr. Mizrahi, or Professor Mizrahi. All I ask is that while you are in my classroom that you treat every opinion with respect no matter how different from yours they may be. In this class there are no right or wrong answers." She paced the front of the room, steps slow and measured.

"I," Juli began, "am not here to judge you. That is not what I am here for, nor would I particularly care to do so. What you do, what you plan, is not my job to criticize. I know none of you, or your circumstances well enough to judge."

"Today, I merely want each of you to introduce yourselves, tell me what you hope to get out of this class and answer, to the best of your ability, this question: What is it that drives you to push yourself past your own limits?" She folded her hands in front of her. "Again, there are no right or wrong answers."

Juli smiled faintly, "If you’ve any questions about the course, either see me after class or stop by my office at any point tomorrow."

[~~Wait for the~~ OCD is up!]

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"What is your opinion then on research merely for the sake of curiosity?" Juli wondered, "You've mentioned both an up-side, and a down-side to breaking past the limits but there are greyer areas than that."

"And nothing can cripple you faster either. Guilt is both a poison and a cure. Take care when using that as your primary motivator." Juli said, "And responsibility can help, but if you are not careful it'll become the reins that hold you back from achieving your full potential. If what you strive for becomes less of a personal goal but rather, something you do out of the sense of 'having' to do it your performance will suffer."

"In my experience, the people doing it for the sake of curiosity tend to go overboard, put on a costume, and start aiming their curiosity toward whether or not their inventions can help them rob banks," Peter said. "I fully admit that my experience is probably not typical, though."

"As for the guilt and responsibility thing, it's like you already know me! Have you been talking to my teachers from New York? Because they had a lot to say about my wasted potential."

Edited 2008-01-10 04:42 (UTC)

"No, I should say not." Juli said, amused, "In my experience curiosity has given us quite a few innovations that we'd have to do without if someone hadn't gone 'what if?' and went ahead with it despite those who’d disagree."

That made her actually laugh, even if only quietly, "I have not talked to any of your teachers, I quite assure you. My observations stem from many years of noticing patterns. Almost invariably, potential is wasted when a person uses guilt as their motivator."

"Add superpowers and a costume in kid-friendly colors to the guilt and you have a guy who had to go to school in Virginia in order to actually focus on his studies," Peter joked. Well, not really 'joked' as he was describing himself. But he was saying it in an amused tone, which is close enough. "And, okay, I do have a guy in mind for the 'curiosity' approach who didn't become a criminal. But he puts on flying armor to fight evil and have a good time, so it's not like he's the most sane example of that."

"I guess what I'm getting at is that my world is nuts. Completely nuts and I'm probably nuts for trying to understand it."

"But trying to understand something is never a wasted effort," she said, "even if you feel you'll come away with little new information, it is worth the attempt." Her lips twitched into another smile. "And what, may I ask, is your definition of sane?"

"Well, I'm fairly sure that sanity doesn't involve ridiculous outfits and armor and hitting people wearing stuff even more ridiculous than you are," Peter said. "So, I don't know, trying to help people in a more down-to-earth way. Or, you know, not helping people, but not going out of your way to hurt them. So balance, I guess. My definition of sanity is balance. If that makes sense."

"It makes about as much sense as any other definition," she said, "sanity is entirely dependant upon your frame of reference. To a person who has known nothing but the ridiculous outfits you've mentioned, then I don't suppose that they'd have any problems considering wearing them to be sane."

"No, trust me, they don't tend to consider it sane in the least," Peter said. "Normal, sure. Sane, not at all. Granted, the whole thing with scientists going kinda overboard with genetic experimentation and investigation that's happening in my world has only been going on publicly for five years. In another ten, fifteen years, maybe then it'll seem less nutty."

That caught her attention. "Genetic experimentation?"

"Nutty place," Peter said. "Nutty, nutty place with superpowers and monsters and clones."

Ye Shall Be As Gods? - Class 1, Period 3

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