fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Monday

"It's been quiet," Ender said. "This week."

An important modifier on Fandom for sure.

"I'd say for most of us that's a relief - a respite, in fact," he continued. "There is often so much excitement here that the moments of calm are very welcome. On the other hand, for some of us, life on Fandom is a lot more banal and quiet than what we're used to. I've seen people wound up tight because they hadn't fought something in a few weeks. I've seen people go stir-crazy in the quiet."

Like him, but he wasn't about to add that.

"There's apparently a room crafted by scientists that is the quietest in the world. You're supposed to be able to hear your own heartbeat when you sit in it. Most people don't last more than half an hour. Of course, some philosophers would tell you that facing the quiet simply means facing yourself, deprived of all distractions. That that's the way wisdom is born."

His mouth quirked.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Is silence a friend, an enemy, a boon or just something that happens? Do you prefer the quiet or the excitement?"

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It was!

"LA," Kathy replied with a smile. "There, I'm used to a quiet that still has an undercurrent of noise."

She was used to falling asleep to the hum of car engines, sirens, and hundreds of voices rising up to her window at night, blending and blurring together until it was impossible to make out the different languages, never mind the different words. Fandom was so quiet compared to all that, it was almost deafening.

"It's a different kind of quiet than I've dealt with before," she added. "Every few summers, we used to visit my grandparents in Korea, and they live in a small town. It was quiet there, too, but not like here." There were still cars for one thing. "And, it was a different country, so it being so quiet didn't weird me out the way it does here. Expectations, I think."

"'It's still America, so surely...'"

Ender shot her a wry smile.

"There's quiet everywhere," he said. "Especially in a country this big."

"Well, yeah, but whenever I think of something like that, I think of picturesque New England towns or huge cornfields in Kansas. Not an island just a little ways away from Baltimore."

Or anywhere she'd ever pictured herself being.

"Disappointed?" Ender asked.

Kathy thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. "Adjusting. I might have had more of a problem with it, but it comes after a very long list of things like sharks falling from the sky, living in a bouncy castle, interdimensional nexuses--nexi?--and being forced to sing."

"But do you think all the other stuff would have been easier to deal with if other things had been more familiar?" Ender asked.

Oooh, another good question, which had Kathy quiet for a minute. "I'm not sure," she admitted slowly. "Maybe yes, because then I'd have a touchstone or normalcy? But maybe not. Because now, everything is so different, it's almost easier to adjust. If this place reminded me of LA and had the crazy stuff happening, I think it would almost become too much like an uncanny valley, you know?"

Yes, Kathy was aware she was using the term wrong, but it still fit, dang it.

"Almost close to reality, but not quite," Ender summarized - mostly for the class, in case someone didn't know. "So much so that it becomes eerie."

"Right," Kathy agreed. "So, if I walk to the Perk and I get jumped by one of the scary, green, goblin-things, I freak out because it's weird and unexpected. But if I was walking to the little bodega that I've gotten candy from every weekday after school since I was ten and I got jumped by one of those, it's ten times scarier. It's unexpected and it's in my comfort zone."

Practical Philosophy, Monday

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