fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Monday

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practical philosophy

Practical Philosophy, Monday

The sky was overcast, but the temperatures weren't terribly low and the threat of rain not so high that Ender opted to stay indoors. Instead they were out on the dorm lawn again, a bag of sandwiches sitting in what would soon be the center of a circle of students.

Before he started talking in general, he glanced towards Yeul and said, "I'd like to see you after class, please."

Then his attention shifted. "Last week, we experienced some interesting events," Ender said, only a little dry humor obvious from his tone of voice. "The peppers were a nuisance, that's for sure. I hope all of you made it through unharmed and unsinged." They usually did at Fandom-- he didn't think he spotted any major injuries.

"Now, the phones are a semi-annual problem. I've experienced that one several times since I came here. I always don't realize what is going on until I've already made a few calls of my own - and I'm always left wondering what prompted me to respond in the first place," he said. "What is it that makes us want to say something back when someone says something to us? Why can't we just let obviously confused, crazy people be?"

He shrugged. "Maybe it's because our lives are built and supported by our ability to communicate, so when someone communicates oddly at us, we're alarmed," he said. "Maybe we've just all got tempers. Maybe we're just trying to turn a freak occasion into some amusement for ourselves. Or maybe it's just human nature for the entire tribe to start shouting when one member does."

He stretched his legs out. "How was your week?" he asked.

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It had totally just added to the confusion.

"I try not to get too frustrated when I can't get an answer, at least," Evan ventured. "Especially for stuff like this, that doesn't really matter all that much anyway. But when it didn't make any sense until I listened to the radio the next day, it did bug me a bit. I had messages where people I respect were telling me that they were going to try to avoid me, things like that... And I didn't know why."

"Were you upset?" Ender asked, tilting his head.

"A little," Evan admitted after a moment. "Not knowing what's going on bothers me, maybe a little too much. So does that feeling like there's some kind of joke that everyone but me might be in on, and nobody is telling. That one is a hard one to shake."

"I think considering your background," Ender said thoughtfully, "Being sensitive to ignorance makes a great deal of sense. Wouldn't you say?"

"It... does," Evan agreed, speaking slowly while he processed Ender's logic. "I just... I try not to let it get to me too much, either. I, um. I kind of have a temper, and I'm not entirely myself when I lose it."

I a very literal, rather terrifying sort of way.

"And you're frightened of losing control," Ender said. He didn't exactly need to ask. "You spend a lot of time at odds with yourself?"

"I never used to," Evan replied softly, "but lately... Yeah, kind of. It's one of the reasons I prefer to just keep to myself and read. If I get angry at a book, nobody's really going to get hurt because of it."

Whereas if he got angry at people, if someone unwittingly stepped on one of the triggers that switched his temper to on, there could very easily go the neighborhood.

Ender nodded.

He waited a moment, to make sure Evan was done and settled. Then he asked, "What makes you angry, Evan?"

Evan's shoulder hitched up a little bit.

"Not much," he said, finally. "I'm usually pretty good at biting it back. But people saying mean things about people I care about... That can do it. People hurting people I care about... I mean, being angry at that sort of thing is understandable, but I... tend to get kind of carried away when I actually react to it. People can say or do things to me and I can usually just tough it out."

"Do you have any idea why you get carried away?" Ender asked quietly.

Oh, did Evan ever. But it took him a moment to kind of nerve himself up to a reply, and even when he did, it was directed toward his knees in a bit of a mumble.

"It's part of what I am," he replied, quietly. "And where I came from, and sometimes there's just too much... too much me for me to handle, and I can't catch it all and pull it back in fast enough."

"Do you feel like you're just fumbling around for control?" Ender asked. He kept his voice calm - made sure there wasn't any note of judgment in there.

Evan didn't speak in reply to that. He just winced a little. And then, as if the wince wasn't reply enough, he added a small, tentative nod.

"And then something bad happens," Ender said quietly, "And you try to force it. But-- outside of yourself."

In some strange way, Evan made him think of Peter. Not this Peter, but the one he was when they were younger.

Evan could probably pull his knees in closer to his chest if he tried, but that would require powers that he wasn't about to start using here in class.

"I don't want this to be a part of me," he settled on, softly. "But it is, and it always will be. Sometimes, I can forget that it's there, and sometimes I find myself standing in ashes and all I can remember is wanting to hurt people as badly as they hurt me. To make sure that they can't do it again."

"There are other ways to keep people from hurting you again," Ender said quietly. "But they're more complicated to learn. They require you to know yourself. And they won't wipe away what's already happened."

There was a great deal of compassion in his eyes. This was not unfamiliar territory.

"How?" Evan looked up at Ender again, finally, his expression something bordering on desperate. "Where do I even start? I thought I knew myself, a-and then suddenly I didn't know anything about anything and even if it answered why so many people were afraid of me, finding out just seemed to make everything worse. I have a whole lot more to be angry about, now."

"Who do you want to be, Evan?" Ender asked. His own voice hadn't changed in volume one bit.

"I... I know who I don't want to be," Evan replied. "That's not quite the same thing." He lifted his chin a little. "I... I want to be somebody that people know they can rely on. Someone who people aren't afraid of just because of who I could have been, because of who part of me is."

Somehow, his go-to answer of 'I want to be a hero just wasn't specific enough for that question, this time.

"I want to be somebody worth being."

"We are all at some time in our lives somebody worth being," Ender said lightly. "We all do something, at some point, that isn't entirely done for our own benefit."

But that wasn't the point.

"You have to know yourself to change yourself actively, though," he said. "You have to look at what you do when you aren't in control - the things you do because you don't know a better way to do it. You can't find that better way to do it until you know exactly why you do it the worst way."

"What if... What if it's a part of me that I'm too scared to ever get to know?"

What if he saw the way his genetic predecessor had been for thousands of years, and he agreed with it? What if, in the wake of what Daken and Sabretooth and the Shadow King and Mystique did to him, he agreed, deep down, in 'survival of the fittest' and that he was the one meant to decide who the fittest really were?

"What if it's bigger than me?"

"Then eventually you'll stop being afraid of it, and you'll start being angry about it," Ender said, though his expression was anything but unkind. "You can't control what you don't understand."

Re: Talk.

genesishero - 2013-05-21 01:50 (UTC) - Expand

"You already are," Sholeh told him, worming her hand in his. "Someone worth being, I mean. You care about other people and you keep caring. And maybe you've made some mistake--some costly, hurtful mistakes--but you keep trying to be better. A lot of people are just happy to just decide that they're meant to be terrible and stop trying."

"That's... part of what I'm afraid will happen," Evan admitted quietly, closing his hand around hers and not letting go for the life of him. "I... I know how easy it is to do the wrong thing. I'm scared that someday, something is going to push me too hard to remember that it's... it's worth it to make the difficult choice."

"I don't really know what to tell you," Sholeh said, apologetic. There wasn't anything she'd read in a book that could help him solve that problem. "But I'm willing to stand there and being part of what makes that difficult choice worth it for as long as you like."