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[a_different_future]

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Re: text

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Every day, we are all but permutations of ourselves.

Although I still think you are uncommonly at ease with that idea.

[a_different_future]

You can't be too attached to who you are. You might be someone else tomorrow. We might as well enjoy what we have when we have it.

This place makes those facts abundantly clear.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

If I accept that premise, though, then presumably I shouldn't be too attached to who anyone else is either.

I prefer the other way of thinking about it. That all of the things we become here are in some way, already contained within us.

[a_different_future]

One doesn't rule out the other.

In fact, it sounds very much like you're arguing for my point. Permutations.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Perhaps I am.

It's certainly preferable to not getting attached to who we are.

Do you never regret things?

[a_different_future]

I regret things I didn't do, not things I did.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

That's unimaginable to me.

Enviable, perhaps, but unimaginable.

[a_different_future]

Everything I've done, I did because at the moment of my decision, it seemed like the best thing to do. Who I was in that moment believed in my actions.

What I didn't do was either because of stupidity or fear.

Flagellating yourself for being unable to tell the future is stupidity.

And round and round we go.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

And you've never made a stupid mistake? Figured something out too slowly? Failed where you could have succeeded because you calculated wrong?

It drives me crazy, to act in error and know that I should have known better.

[a_different_future]

The error in all of those cases is what you failed to learn. What you didn't do, didn't see, didn't know.

Calculation is a dice throw, no matter what you like to tell yourself. You make the best decision you can at the time and you either had all the numbers you needed or you didn't. And sometimes those numbers aren't possible to know.

What's more useful: to drive yourself to do more, learn more, have more numbers or drive yourself crazy doubting the mathematician?

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

I know that you aren't wrong, and of course, all you can do is try and learn from the things you do wrong.

But I also think it requires a certain strength of will to be able to keep from wanting to punish yourself for your failures. Or to be able to motivate yourself without that punishment on the other side of it.

[a_different_future]

Call it strength. I call it knowledge of the consequences to do otherwise.

Those you failed deserve better.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Could I ask you about something, that is possibly personal?

[a_different_future]

You can ask. I might not answer.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

All right.

You mentioned, when we spoke before the flood, that you were persuaded to try and be good once, and you were killed for it.

I wondered what made you want to try that life, and if you regret that now.

[a_different_future]

I met another version of myself from a parallel world. He convinced me, no doubt in a ploy to avoid fighting me, that there was 'still good' inside of me and that I could change both myself and the world's perception of me.

I regret it. I might have come from there to here, but it was never my world and the idea of the people there ever welcoming me is ludicrous.

That's the other thing: some choices can never be undone. You can worry at the knot all you like, but it'll just give those running behind you the chance to stab you in the back.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

I have never personally, believed that good was something internal. Or that we need to have some secret reserve of it left inside us to do good things.

I think that's what I mean when I say that people don't need to change here. From how you've treated me, indeed, from every single encounter that we've had since you arrived here, you are more than capable of being good to people.

Whatever you think is inside you, whatever you've done. You treat people well.

[a_different_future]

I've also killed people. Many many people.

A third of a graduating class. A man at his wedding. Any criminal practicing his trade in my city.

I don't believe that beings have a right to live, especially not those who are a threat to my life. Or who do things I don't like. I'm assuming that's why I'm an inmate, after all.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

So have I. Only I killed men who I had no quarrel with at all. Men who were exactly the same as I am, only aligned with a different empire.

I don't hold either of those things as being mutually exclusive with doing good.

Do you regret any of that? Any of the killing you've done?

[a_different_future]

[ It would be so easy to say no. And honestly, it's the truth in so many cases. So many. Most of them. But- ]

One.

But it was necessary.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Do you mind telling me who?

[a_different_future]

That depends on why you want to know.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

Because you're complicated, and I like you. And I wish I understood you better.

[a_different_future]

[ There's a significant pause before the answer comes. ]

My brother.

[sssiiiiirrrrr]

[Welp. That's pretty sad.]

I'm sorry. Even if it was your only option-- Especially if it was your only option.