victory_road | Primary Covert [Text, anonymous]

So this is a weird question, but there's a lot of weird people here so maybe some of you have answers.

Anybody else have problems reacting to normal situations because they haven't lived normal lives? Yeah, yeah, we're all well outside of normal, especially here, but I mean like all the way down to the bones of the basics. Like you don't know how to deal with birthdays because you've never celebrated yours before. (Specifically, in a world where that's an expected thing people do.) Or you're not sure how to care about people genuinely because you never had...relationships? You don't know how to deal with kids because you never had a childhood. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.

I feel like I'm play-acting being a person a lot of the time because I never got the fundamentals. I know how to put on a good show, but I don't know how to be. There's got to be other people who were home sick the day the lesson on how to be a human being came up in the curriculum. So I want to know how those people deal with it.

[Hawks is intentionally writing slightly differently than he normally does (namely, actually using proper punctuation) to disguise himself ever so slightly.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Does it bother you?

Sort of. Not in the "I feel sorry for myself" sense, but more in the "am I even human if I can't actually relate to almost anyone else" sense. I know how to act a lot of things. Like, how to take care of people and care about them. But it doesn't feel natural. I'm not sure how to tell if it's real. Do I actually care about people, or am I acting like I do because I want the act to be real? I never learned the normal way. I don't know how it feels, or how to tell the feeling from the act.

I want to know if there's a way for Pinocchio to become a real boy. I want to be able to be genuine, but I don't know how to learn that.

I'm not sure I really get it, but...
If you pretend to care about someone because you WANT to care about them, isn't that the same thing as caring for real?
It's not like you're pretending to care just to turn around and hurt them.

I guess that's a way of looking at it. And ultimately the result is the same, so it's not like the someone in question has much to complain about. But that's looking at it from an outsider's perspective. Pretending to care about someone and actually caring about them don't feel the same at all, no matter how good the reason behind the pretending might be.

And the pretending is what happens because I don't get people, I can't connect with them, and I've just been taught to do what helps them. No more or less. Understanding anything about it or them optional. And part of helping them is being who they need me to be, and they need somebody who cares about them. So it's this whole weird twisted-up ouroboros of who and what am I really doing this for.

That sounds pretty complicated. Honestly, I don't really think I get it.
In the first place, if you don't know how to care about people, then how do you know it feels different from just pretending to care?
Besides, it sounds to me like you're a good person no matter which way you cut it, so does it really matter that much?

It's hard to explain. I think it's because I tend to view people from a lens of "I should care about them because I've been instructed to", and "I care about this person because I feel things for them" tends to come up rarely. I guess you could call it the difference between calculation and instinct.

I know I act like a good person. And maybe actions are really the only important thing. But I don't know if the person I've been taught to act like is really me at all, so I can't exactly take credit for them or the way that person is inclined to behave - they're someone else's creation.

I'm really not following, sorry.

[As it happens, Doppio is the least qualified person to possibly discuss this with (and yet, he replied; and yet, he made sure he was anonymous).]

It's not like you don't like the way you act, right? Since you JUST said you want to care about people.
So if you're doing what you want to do, why can't you just... I don't know, try really hard to believe in yourself?
Believe you are who you say you are, I mean.

Because... I mean...
AREN'T you?

I don't know if I am or not. That's kind of the problem.

I can't tell my own thoughts and desires apart from the way I've been trained to act and think very well anymore. And it's true that I don't necessarily hate the way I've been trained to be, so maybe the distinction shouldn't matter. But I guess at the end of the day, I want to be more than just what other people shaped me into. I want there to be someone else separate from that. But I don't know if there is anymore - or if there is, how to find them under all the training.

[Doppio reads this two or three times.

Ultimately, he reaches no meaningful conclusion.]

Sorry, I don't think I can help.
I don't know how or why you'd try to be someone else, especially if that "someone else" is just going to be doing the same things.
I'd get it if you wanted to be someone completely different, but not this.

Yeah, it may be too hard to explain to somebody coming from a way different place than me. All I can say is that at the end of the day, I want who I am to be more than just what I do. Especially here in this place, where I can't actually do those things much, if at all, anymore. Doesn't leave much left for me to be. I feel like an ice cube tray in the desert - can't perform the one function I was made to fulfill. So what does that leave me as, besides mostly useless?

I'm not saying that in a self-pitying way, for the record. I'm not depressed about it. It is what it is, and I roll with punches pretty easily. But it's a question I don't really know how to answer, and in a place where I've got nothing but time to think about that question, finding the answer feels kinda pressing.

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but... does that mean you'd actually feel a little more like yourself if you COULD do those things here?
I wonder if you could just get a similar job or something.

Hm...you might not be wrong. But it's not possible to do those things here. What I did back home kind of relied on things this world takes away from us. Special abilities and all.

[Hawks hopes that makes it sound more like a skill or a power than, say, wings, and is therefore enough of a subtle misdirect to keep any suspicion away from him.]

Anyway, this world is so different from my own world that there just aren't parallels to some things. I'm doing what I can to find similar things to do, but it's really not that close at all.

Not to change the subject, but thanks for taking the time. You clearly don't get where I'm coming from at all, but you're still trying to help me out. I appreciate it.

Oh, okay. I think I kind of get that.
What I'm doing here isn't all that close to what I did back home either, so it gets a little frustrating...
But at least I'm not alone.

And... if you say so, then I'm glad?
To be honest, I was just trying to understand.

Primary Covert [Text, anonymous]

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