fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Wednesday

Ender preferred to keep his classes outside when the weather allowed for it at all. As the temperatures were decent and it didn't look like it was going to rain just yet, he took the class outside to the dorm lawn where he sat down on the ground. "Sit down in a circle, please."

He had a bag of sandwiches and a bag of bottles of water with him, which he put in the middle of the circle.

"Welcome," he said. "My name is Andrew Wiggin. I'm an alumnus of this school; I graduated several years ago." That was all they needed to know, as far as he was concerned. "And you might be wondering what you signed on for."

"While 'philosophy' is in my class's title, we're not here primarily to talk about the philosophers of old or the specifics of particular lines of thought in philosophy. In this class, we try to put our own experiences into a greater perspective through conversation and debate. That means I expect some level of participation from all of you."

This was the part where he smiled, at least a little. "That doesn't mean you always need to speak up about yourself," he said. "No topics are everything to everyone. If that week's subject veers too close to something you want to keep private, be my guest - just try and pitch in when someone else speaks. Ask questions."

"Because that's the point of this class: to ask questions of ourselves and of the people around us. You can even ask questions of me, if you feel the need. And maybe together we can get to the core of our joint and individual experiences." His mouth quirked a bit more. "That doesn't mean we're always going to be lingering on the existential questions - or staring at our belly buttons. It just means we're going to try and dig and come to some understanding about each other, ourselves, and the world."

He picked up a bottle of water. "As for today, let's open a dialogue," he said. "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 you can bring up something else you feel is worth questioning. I consider most topics fair game, as long as they're brought up with regard for your fellow students. I can't claim knowledge on most, but I can claim an ability to annoy you with questions about just about anything."

He paused, then nodded at the surly tattooed youth also sitting in the circle. "That's your TA, by the way. His name is Cade."

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"It's not that strange," Ender noted. "When you're under pressure, there's a tendency to bottle up your imperfections because you aren't allowed to air them out. That heightens your state of distress, especially when you finally let it out."

Evan nodded a little. That made sense enough.

"And my pets really don't seem to care," he noted. "They don't have expectations and they're not afraid of me. They're just there."

He wasn't alone. Not entirely.

"That's what pets are for, or so I'm told," Ender said. "Friends too, I hear."

"Friends too," Evan agreed softly. "Though I'm not sure I'm very good at making those."

He was probably better at it than he thought.

"I find that very unlikely," Ender told him.

"Well... I don't go out of my way to meet new people, at least," Evan offered, picking a few more blades of grass. "But I guess you don't have to try to meet people in order to do so. That just sort of... happens, sometimes?"

He left his room from time to time, that probably counted as putting himself out there to be met.

"The school makes it easier by providing the common rooms, if that's what you're looking for," Ender said with a faint smile. "It's okay to just have one or two friends you really get along with, too. It's not a science either way."

"I guess it's not," Evan replied, nodding. "I think I'm still getting a feel for a lot of this sort of thing. If someone leaves, is it okay to make new friends right away? Or if someone dies? I don't think anyone would begrudge me that, meeting new people and making new friends and... moving on, I suppose."

He chewed his lip, and then added, "It's still hard to lose people. It makes me half afraid of meeting more, knowing that everyone leaves eventually."

"It's not a balance sheet, Evan," Ender said. "People come into your life and people leave, and each one of them brings something you can never replace. So of course it's fine to make new friends."

He gave a little shrug. "As for the latter question... well, that's up to you. Are you capable and willing to trade in companionship for safety?"

"I don't know if I'm either," Evan admitted, looking down at the grass and not quite able to make eye contact. "I suppose after a while, maybe it would seem like the best way to do things. I'm probably going to be around for a long time."

Er. Unless he got himself killed somehow. That seemed to be a thing.

"It could," Ender agreed. "Or it might work out differently." He glanced towards Yeul. "We've all got to figure out by ourselves what we need to survive."

He personally wasn't comfortable with too many attachments - a relic of his youth.

Evan glanced up toward Yeul as well, watched her quietly for a moment, and then looked back down.

"I suppose I'll get to that point whenever I get there," he noted. "I'm jealous of people who have already figured out their balance, but I am still new."

New at everything. There was still plenty of time for him to learn.

"It can be something of a crucible," Ender said, not without sympathy. "To put it mildly."

"And that's where it all loops around," Evan noted, inspecting one of the blades of grass that he'd plucked, and then busying himself with carefully peeling it into thin threads along the grain. "I don't think it's the sort of crucible that I can navigate alone. But the people I'm most comfortable talking to are gone, and being alone means that weird weight is off my shoulders, and I have no idea how any of it is supposed to fit together."

He felt very new, then.

"Do you feel like you need someone to talk to?" Ender asked. "Do you get lonely?"

"Sometimes I feel as though if I don't talk to someone, I'll just... wither up," Evan admitted, grasping for words that described it well enough. "Except a lot of things I would talk about, people are... uncomfortable with. Gert wasn't. And Sholeh didn't understand a lot of it, but she'd listen. And now that's all just... gone."

"You're in mourning," Ender surmised. "It'll pass, Evan."

"I hope so," Evan murmured. "I mean, I know it will. Just... only mostly. They'll go to that same place my parents did, and it'll just be.... dull. And... that's okay. That's normal."

But if it still stung like new, then maybe they weren't that far gone.

"That's part of being alive," Ender said. He paused, then amended: "No, that's part of packing on mileage. Regrets, and the dull shades of those who meant something to us in the past."

Evan was quiet again, and then, sounding small, he ventured, "What if I don't want them to ever fade to dull?"

Ender offered him a tiny smile - and an expression full of sympathy.

"It's not a matter of what we want," he said. "There are memories we can carry vividly until the end of time. But not whole people, and it's a good thing we can't, or the past will fill up all the space the future's going to need."

Practical Philosophy, Wednesday

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