fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Friday

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practical philosophy

Practical Philosophy, Friday

"We come into life shaped in a certain way," Ender began. Outside again: the weather continued to work with him, which pleased him. Even if there were dark clouds on the horizon. "We're born into a body that fits us, and we carry it with us every step of the way. You look into the mirror for the first time and you think, 'that's me', and that stays with you. You can't picture yourself another way - why would you? - and you become the unit to which everything is measured: this is me, and that is everybody else. And while as a species we're gifted in the art of finding all the ways to bring other people into the sphere of 'me', of us, that first definition never leaves us."

He pulled his legs up further towards himself.

"Which is what makes Fandom such a befuddling experience at times," he said. "We wake up one morning and our body - our first external definition of the word 'me' - is no longer what we expect it to be. It doesn't move with us the same way, it doesn't bend or budge or respond to command any longer. We have to work... very hard, sometimes, to be able to define it as 'me' again."

He picked up his bottle of water and took a swig. "Then again, as I said, we humans - all sentients, I'm impudently assuming - are preternaturally well-equipped to include others into our sense of being. So perhaps that is what we do when weekends like this happen: try to include this other body into our sense of 'me'. Some of us are successful. Some of us might not be. I think I did fine, but then I have been here for a very long time. I'm used to a little redefinition on the fly."

Ender flashed the group a slight, friendly smile. "So I'd like to hear about you, first of all," he said. "Was it difficult to adjust? Was it easy? Freeing, perhaps, not to be the usual 'me' but some other new 'me' instead? I assume for some it might be inspirational, to find some other self to be, even for a little while, without having to skip out and abandon the self all together." He set the bottle back down on the ground.

"It's different, yet still the same, when we switch genders," he said. "Something some of you might not have experienced yet. There's such a load, though, where it comes to gender. Out here, on this Earth, the ruling culture implies too often that there are seperate roles for men and for women. Turning genders might wind up confronting you with your own prejudices. It might make you think about who you actually are, as opposed to you-the-male or you-the-female. It might also scare the hell out of you, by temporarily kicking out some of the legs under carefully constructed answers of 'what is my sexual preference and what does it mean for my identity' and 'what is my expected place in life'."

He paused.

"Of course, there are cultures where there is no difference, or precious little of it. If you hail from one, you might wonder what my problem is. What this Earth's western society's problem is. Or maybe your world has far stricter ideas about what a man or a woman is, and the change becomes intolerable." He was thinking, particularly, of Karla. "For others, the gender they are born with, the gender they see when they look in the mirror, is not what they identify as 'me'-- for them transformation is an essential goal to pursue, in whatever shape they see it, and that makes this issue yet more complicated."

Finally, he tossed the bag of sandwiches into the ring. "I'd advise seeing it as an educational experience, should it ever happen to you - but we'll talk about that more if you feel like it, or if it happens to us later down the road."

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Settle in, judge the weather, enjoy yourself.

Britta was, this time, not actually drunk for class, not even a little bit, like last week. She was, however, tending to some new wounds on her wrists, a gift from her newly acquired feline roommate (she wasn't going to belittle Susie B by referring to her as a pet). There was even an angry set of red slashes on her cheek, a badge she wore proudly. Susie B was asserting herself, and she liked that in a cat.

Shaped differently.

Cassidy

Britta Perry

Susan Sto Helit

Peeta Mellark

William Murdoch

Tara Maclay

Mercy Thompson

Edited 2012-05-25 21:42 (UTC)

Freddie Benson

Sholeh Zeela a Zhahar

James of Krondor

As one does. Feel free to interrupt if you have something to say while he's talking.

Cassidy, of course, was taking notes again.

How did you experience transformation, if you did so at all? Do you have thoughts on that? What about turning into another gender?

Or bring up something else entirely. As always: feel free to make things messy.

"I was a unicorn," Cassidy finally said. "It was a bit difficult trying to find other ways to accomplish things that I was used to doing. Not having hands was a little strange."

"Did you find a way to do them in the end?" Ender asked. "I know Ben had some trouble going down the stairs."

"I learned that sometimes it takes a great deal of patience to find a way to accomplish things that I had always just been able to do." She played with a strand of hair. "I was able to use my Craft to get myself out of my locked room. It was a great deal harder to find a way to be able to use the phone. I ended up teaching myself extreme motor control when I spent several hours trying to get a pencil to touch the keys on my phone just right using my Craft."

If anything, it had definitely forced her to teach herself a new skill that could come in handy in other situations that were less harmless than the weekend had been.

"It sounds like it was actually a useful experience for you," Ender noted. "Did you have any trouble adjusting besides the practicalities?"

"Eating and drinking were problematic," she admitted. "Getting comfortable and being able to study was hard."

"You must appreciate having your hands back," Ender said wryly.

She nodded. "It was hard because even when I wasn't me, I was still me and still had responsibilities that I had to keep up with."

"So not a terribly huge blow to your sense of self, is what you're saying," Ender said, with gentle amusement in his voice. "Good to know."

Cassidy shook her head. "Just easier to my sense of self when I have hands to write and study," she said with a small smile.

"The first time I was a boy I .... kind of had a hard time," Tara offered. "I had issues trusting men back then, and being one was just ... I didn't like it. My roommate got me to stop staring at myself in the mirror and go to class."

"Was it different the second time around?" Ender wondered.

Tara nodded. "Much easier, and by the third it was like ... totally routine. You can get used to just about anything."

"Now there's a motto we could put on all our Fandom flags," Ender said, a little amused. "I was just annoyed by it when it happened to me the first time."

But he'd been fairly numb back then.

"You get along with your sister," Tara pointed out. "I hardly talk to my brother. I mean, not to psychoanalyze, but that ... probably makes a difference."

He got along with Val now. Back then... well, really still now-- it was complicated.

But that fell in the rather thick folder of 'things Ender didn't see a reason to bother Tara with'. "Do you think you saw your brother in yourself?" he asked.

Not that he knew anything about that, either.

Someday, Tara might cotton to what was in that folder.

As it was, she shrugged. "Not physically, but maybe emotionally? I think siblings are ... a pretty normal thing to think about when you change genders. As much as changing genders can be normal, anyhow"

"Not particularly," Ender agreed. He looked thoughtful. "The comparison is easy," he said. "But it makes you wonder - how much of our siblings are we, and how much aren't we?"

"Maybe that's a topic for a different week," Tara suggested. "Wh-when we're learning who 'me' is, we're also learning ... who the people around us are. Our families. It's huge, no matter how you end up feeling about them later."

Edited 2012-05-25 19:12 (UTC)

"Well, of course," Ender noted. "You can't really have a 'me' without a 'them'-- your parents and your relatives would be the first them you encounter anywhere."

Once she's pinged in, of course.

Tara was trying to make a list of all the things she'd been besides herself in Fandom. Violet, boy (three times), guinea pig, model who didn't look like her, model who did look like her, satanic cult member, six-year-old, purple pony with wings, Surreal ...

It was a long list.

Edited 2012-05-25 16:56 (UTC)

For anything you might want to say to him after class.

There's this Dutch band I've heard on the radio countless times, and I always liked their (in charmingly Dutch-accented English) songs, but I never quite realized they were all from the same band until a few weeks ago. Durr, me.

This song of theirs is making me smile right now, and it seems appropriate after last weekend...

(Also this absolutely beautiful song of theirs is going on my Ender soundtrack. And in completely unrelated news, oh god, the first Dutch European Football Championship song has been released. Poor

dollpocalypse is going to be stuck with that when she gets here.)

Edited 2012-05-25 12:06 (UTC)

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Practical Philosophy, Friday

Before Class

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Sign In

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no subject

Listen to the Lecture

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Talk.

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Talk to the TA

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Talk to Ender

OOC