fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Monday

Entry tags:

practical philosophy

Practical Philosophy, Monday

Ender had always preferred to teach his classes outside whenever possible. When it became obvious the morning would be a little chilly but not rainy, he posted a note on his designated classroom's door pointing all the students towards the dorm lawn.

He sat down on the grass out there, legs folded. By his side was a bag full of sandwiches, just in case any student had missed breakfast. And there he waited, quiet and patient, until everyone had arrived.

"You'll notice I didn't bring any books," he said, once they had. "Because despite what the title of this class might imply, I'm not actually here to tell you about Hegel or Kant and what they were thinking. They might come up, but if they do, it's because they have had interesting ideas that might be useful to us."

He stretched his legs out. "My name is Andrew Wiggin, though some people call me Ender," he said, "And I don't bring books here because I don't think they have all that many answers. I don't spite them for that, because I don't exactly have a lot of answers of my own. What I have are questions, which are far more useful in the long run. You can keep asking questions as the situation changes - answers tend to be the same thing no matter when you check up on them."

He smiled wryly.

"This class is about questions," he said. "And it's about opening a dialogue with those questions. Everyone here has sat through something in their life that they have questions about - though whether they want to admit that is another thing entirely. We're here to talk about those questions as they come up. No more, no less."

He tilted his chin up - maybe at Cade, maybe at nothing in particular. "Of course, that means I expect all of you to participate," he said. "You don't have to share about yourself if you absolutely don't want to, though I'll have you know that it helps. But I expect you to talk along. If you don't, I'm not going to apologize for the kinds of questions I'll ask. While we're at it, I also won't tolerate shaming anyone in this class for any reason."

Having said that, though, Ender's mouth quirked up. "Enough with the threats," he said. "I don't believe in classic introductions - I think I know what most of your names are, and I'll learn the ones that I don't, and what year you're in is of absolutely no concern to me."

"Let's open a dialogue instead," he finished. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"

"We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. I'm open to talking about anything, as long as you think it's worth questioning. Because you can assume from here on in that I really don't know a thing; but maybe by educating me, you can find something worth educating yourself about."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Most of it," Sholeh said, offering him a small smile back. "The dungeon was...hard. But I'm trying to get over it," she added quickly.

She didn't want her new teacher thinking she was a malingerer.

Oh, Sholeh...

"I'm sure you are," Ender said easily. More seriously, he added, "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Oh, umm, I just...died," Sholeh said, finding the grass uttely absorbing. "Except I really didn't, obviously. I was just asleep. But I thought I had, umm, died."

She swallowed hard, saying that word. It didn't sit well on her tongue. Even worse was the fact that her sisters had been trapped in her body for days, also convinced that she was dead.

Trapped in the body of their dead baby sister. At least Sholeh had just been, well, dead.

But she couldn't really talk about that now. Of the few people who knew, well, one of them was the guy who killed her. Another was his roommate.

"I guess it happened to lots of people, though. The, umm, dying thing. Not the way I did."

"Sure," Ender said, nodding. "But I'm not talking to them now. I'm talking to you, Sholeh."

His mouth quirked briefly. It wasn't really a smile - just a twitch.

"It's all right to talk about your own hurts every now and again."

"Oh, but it was weeks ago now," Sholeh said earnestly. "And my mothers say it never did anyone any good, dwelling on about the past. And besides..." she shifted uncomfortably. "It wasn't real. Everyone knows that."

Which was why everyone else seemed to have gotten over what happened and moved on. But not her. She was still dwelling.

Ender's expression didn't change even a little bit.

"It was obviously real to you."

Sholeh...didn't have an answer to that. "It felt that way," she admitted with a shrug that attempted to be careless but fell short by a mile. "Is this when we start asking what the nature of reality is?"

"Why?" Ender said mildly. "Does the nature of reality have anything to do with what you went through? I don't think so. That discussion is an abstraction."

He looked her in the eye. "You're hurting," he said, "and that's okay."

It was like he knew her deflection tactics or something!

"Is it?" she asked in a small voice. "It doesn't feel okay. I feel...weak. Lesser."

"What happened isn't okay," Ender said softly. "But everything you feeling is fine. There isn't a handy set of instructions everyone has to follow when these things happen, Sholeh."

"It's hard to believe that," Sholeh said softly, "when everyone here is special and wonderful and magic, and then I'm just me. Quiet, mousey me, who can't even stay alive with people looking out for me and then just gnaws on her own liver about it afterwards."

And then she looked up at him, expression unhappy. "And this isn't proper talk for class. You're going to think I'm mopey and self-absorbed, because the first thing we ever talked about was me complaining about how things are. I'm not like that, I'm not."

"Actually, what I think is that you're a girl who's terribly worried about being a burden to anyone, who wants to make a good impression by doing as normal, upstanding people do, and who doesn't realize she's a unique human being in her own right who deserves to have her feelings respected," Ender said, less soft, seeking eye-contact the moment he could.

"And who, I'm sure, can often be special and wonderful and magic, like everybody else. Just not always. Just like everybody else."

That answer surprised Sholeh right back into silence. She searched his eyes for something, she wasn't sure what, perhaps a sign that he was less than sincere.

"Nobody likes burdens," she mumbled, confused. "They deal with them, tolerate them, but no one likes them. And standing out from normal, upstanding people...that can be dangerous."

"Dangerous, sometimes. Good for you, sometimes," Ender said. While his expression showed nothing of himself, as it usually did, it had not a hint of insincerity. He was merely saying the truth as he saw it. "Of course, the vast majority of us aren't terribly normal or upstanding. We've all got our eccentricities."

He shrugged gently.

"As for being a burden, that's something we've all done. Try taking it up with the mothers of the world and ask them if they minded. Ask anyone who's had a friend or a lover or a parent or a sibling. If we didn't make time to carry each other every now and again, none of us would get very far."

"More often dangerous than good for you," Sholeh said flatly, with the authority of someone who had seen the outcomes of the 'dangerous.'

It was the one thing he'd said that she could respond to. His other comment, she was still poking at mentally. If she didn't take the time to think about it, she wouldn't be able to make a cogent point and she found herself wanting Ender to think of her as someone who could speak intelligently about things.

Perhaps it was because he was speaking intelligently to her. Perhaps it was because he was making her think. Either way, she wanted him to feel that she deserved the time and thought he was devoting to her.

Re: Talk.

endsthegame - 2013-05-14 16:40 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Talk.

3girls-1core.livejournal.com - 2013-05-14 16:49 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Talk.

endsthegame - 2013-05-14 17:12 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Talk.

3girls-1core.livejournal.com - 2013-05-15 07:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Talk.

endsthegame - 2013-05-15 07:25 (UTC) - Expand

"Knowing that it wasn't real afterward doesn't always help," Cassidy said sympathetically. "I know that everything felt so real there and I still think about it."

"Really?" Sholeh asked, blinking in surprise, "I just thought that...everyone seemed to have moved on already..."

Cassidy shook her head. "Not all of us," she assured the other girl. "Some of us are just really good at repressing and putting a happy face on for others."

Sholeh's face clouded again. She couldn't even do that right. "But then when do you feel better?"

"It's different for everyone," Cassidy said softly. "Sometimes it takes a longer time than you would like, but it does get better. I still have dreams about the dungeons and the paths, but each time they are a little less raw."

"Did you get killed in the dungeon, too?" Sholeh asked in a very small voice?

"I didn't die this time," Cassidy shook her head. "I have before, but not this last time. I saw things happen to friends and family, though."

"Does it happen a lot?" Sholeh asked. "People thinking they've died and then coming back?"

She wasn't sure she could handle that happening with any kind of regularity.

Cassidy didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to scare this girl either. "I've been here four years and this was the second time of that happening that I know of."

The Nothing didn't count as far as she was concerned because that destroyed everything and erased all of existence -- including her. In that dream world that someone named Umbridge controlled, she had been broken of everything, but didn't die, though that version of her longed for death. So, she was counting when she and others were killed in that weird world of black eyes and weird transformations and the dungeons they had all recently been returned from.

So see, twice.

A little disingenuous, but it wasn't like Sholeh knew the difference.

"I...guess twice is okay?" Dubious Sholeh was dubious. "I mean, I've only been here a year and I'm at one, so..."

She really wasn't sure where she was going with this.