![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
- audio,
- departures,
- howl,
- ic,
- peter,
- poly,
- reflecting,
- sophie
[audio]
[Oddly enough, there's no video accompanying this particular entry.]
I have been thinking, and it seems--at the risk of sounding Vulcan--illogical, putting effort into anything in the City. Yes, I realize that this way of thinking can be applied to life as a whole, but in the City, memory is so-- [a long pause, during which, one imagines, Chekov gestures wildly in an attempt to find the correct word] --tenuous?
What I mean is, at home, we are constantly learning, accumulating knowledge and, unless something out of the ordinary happens, what we learn never leaves us. And even when we die, there is something of our existence left... memories, a legacy--something. Memories may not last forever, and we are forgotten as those who knew us or have heard of us die also, but in the City... how long do memories of anyone last? Six years? Five?
That is not to say that I believe we should stop doing things here, in the City. As one of my professors would have said, work, activity, and social interactions are important to the well-being of humans and humanoids, even if none of the results are lasting, but it bothers me to think that there is nothing that I will retain from the time spent here. I cannot imagine that--living here and learning, only to forget once I leave. And those I have come to know, when they leave, will have no memory of what happened here. That--everyone forgetting--seems more final than death.
It bothers me more than death, I think. Maybe that is only because death is a phenomenon that I understand and have some familiarity with; maybe it is vanity speaking and I dislike the thought of being forgotten so easily.
Mostly, I am very attached to my mind. There is nothing that I value more than what I have learned and what I remember, and I do not want that taken away.
[He almost sounds... upset? But then, just as cheerfully as ever--]
Howl, Sophie--have you seen Peter recently? I am beginning to become concerned.
[COMMENT]
I have been thinking, and it seems--at the risk of sounding Vulcan--illogical, putting effort into anything in the City. Yes, I realize that this way of thinking can be applied to life as a whole, but in the City, memory is so-- [a long pause, during which, one imagines, Chekov gestures wildly in an attempt to find the correct word] --tenuous?
What I mean is, at home, we are constantly learning, accumulating knowledge and, unless something out of the ordinary happens, what we learn never leaves us. And even when we die, there is something of our existence left... memories, a legacy--something. Memories may not last forever, and we are forgotten as those who knew us or have heard of us die also, but in the City... how long do memories of anyone last? Six years? Five?
That is not to say that I believe we should stop doing things here, in the City. As one of my professors would have said, work, activity, and social interactions are important to the well-being of humans and humanoids, even if none of the results are lasting, but it bothers me to think that there is nothing that I will retain from the time spent here. I cannot imagine that--living here and learning, only to forget once I leave. And those I have come to know, when they leave, will have no memory of what happened here. That--everyone forgetting--seems more final than death.
It bothers me more than death, I think. Maybe that is only because death is a phenomenon that I understand and have some familiarity with; maybe it is vanity speaking and I dislike the thought of being forgotten so easily.
Mostly, I am very attached to my mind. There is nothing that I value more than what I have learned and what I remember, and I do not want that taken away.
[He almost sounds... upset? But then, just as cheerfully as ever--]
Howl, Sophie--have you seen Peter recently? I am beginning to become concerned.
[COMMENT]