Philosophical Ramblings (Hey, Callback Title)

I’m on the bus home. I read Ender’s Game just now. It was extremely good. I almost say “surprisingly,” but from all I’ve heard about it, there’s nothing surprising about it. It is, after all, one of the classics of science-fiction, written by one of the SF greats. I learned a couple of things from reading it. A couple of important things, I think.

Here’s the first thing. There are two kinds of power – mental power and physical power. Physical power is the stuff that intrigues and thrills me, why I read comic books and play D&D and bang away at video games, whether I’m a stout warrior slicing down a foe a hundred times his size, a powerful wizard blasting away at legions of enemies with fire and lightning, or a battleship defeating a fleet a thousand times its size.

Physical power is what fills my fantasies and my dreams. When I walk to class, when I walk to the store, when I walk just to go out and have a walk, my head is filled with thoughts of might and magic. Bizarre anime-like plots like the one I described, with legendary heroes performing fantastic feats. Or different, thinking of my own self, doing crazy things I’d never be capable of, playing the hero, rescuing the innocent, protecting those weaker or disadvantaged, showing my strength.

I dream like this because physical power is something unattainable to me. At least, in any significant amount. I can train my body and become fit and toned and muscular, but the most I’ll ever be able to hope for is to hold my own in a fight against worse odds, or perform impressive feats undoable by those in worse shape. I’ll never be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, never be able to dodge bullets, never be able to throw a train or project searing beams of energy from my hands.

I’ll never be able to do any of it. So that’s what I dream of. Physical power is the unreachable star, what I’ll always want and never have. But there is another kind of power which I will have, which I do have, and that is mental power.

This was demonstrated in Ender’s Game, very well. Ender was not very physically adept. He defeated opponents physically superior to him through tactics and trickery. He led a fleet against an impossible foe and won, not because of a massive planet-destroying weapon (though it helped), but because of his invulnerable skill at strategy and command.

Mental power is something I do have. I’m no Ender – I couldn’t lead a group of starships to victory against a foe that outnumbered them a hundred to one – but I do fancy myself to be quick in a tight spot and pretty good at coming up with ideas. This, I can sharpen. If I focus on training my mind like I’m going to be training my body, I can eventually do amazing, marvelous things – far more amazing than I ever could with biceps that could bend steel or glowing eyes that could burn a hole through concrete.

That was the first thing that the book taught me. If you were to pit mental power against physical power, assuming equal circumstances and equal skill, the mental power is heavily favored to win. Take the strongest man in the world, hunting down a weakling in a warehouse. Cut the lights, all of a sudden his strength means nothing. He can’t punch what he can’t see. Mental power can trump physical power because it can go around it, or circumvent it, or put it in a situation where it is useless. And since I have, or can have, mental power, that favors me in situations where I would otherwise be in difficulty.

That was one thing. That was important. That may fundamentally change things. But more was changed than just that. Something very important occurred to me. My philosophy of life is wrong...again.

For the longest time, I thought the most important thing to a person was happiness. To be happy, or content, that was the acme of a person’s life. What more could one want? And I was happy, or content, in my idle pleasures and simple things. But I was bored, and I knew it. I craved more. That’s why I constantly manifest such odd fantasies in my head – because my mind was (is) being so underused that it is (was) forced to craft its own scenarios in which something, anything, interesting happened to me.

Then I spoke with Henry, experienced the epiphany I’ve shared with all around me, knew for a fact that I was living my life wrong – and I was. I still believe this, absolutely. Talking to Henry and coming to the realization that I did was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years. I resolved that no more would I merely be content to loaf around and do nothing, I would be social, I would go out and talk and experience new things.

I thought that the most important thing to a person was excitement. Firework moments, Henry called them. Crash, boom, bang, colored lights and explosions and bang, pow, kaboom, something fun’s happening, now it’s over and there’s nothing left but a wisp of smoke and the dying echoes. But the memory persists, blazes as brightly as the fire it conjures forth in the mind.

Having thought more thoroughly about it, I came to the conclusion that this too was wrong. That’s a fun way to live, certainly more interesting and entertaining than the way I was living previously, but it’s unsustainable. A person can’t live expecting a constant stream of excitement. It’s impossible to expect, because it won’t happen. On the odd circumstance that constant excitement does occur, it’s a temporary and transient thing, and when it leaves it leaves you hungry and drained, tired from the fun but wanting more, but more won’t come, because the only thing a life full of explosions can lead to is disappointment when they stop – or nothing at all, because a particularly large bang can be the last one you ever hear.

I still plan to seek excitement. I’m young, I’m in college, I’m ideally placed for fun things to happen and to seek new and entertaining possibilities. But that isn’t the basis of my life. It’ll be fun, but it won’t be everything. I realized, now, what the most important thing to a person is:

Other people.

Humans are social creatures by nature. We want to associate ourselves with others, because other people are the only thing that can provide the variety we crave – the companionship we seek – the emotions we live for.

Not that a man should define himself by the company he keeps. I’m certainly the last person to start hanging out with a given crowd just because it’s the “in” thing to do, because I seek credibility or approval. But it’s because I made a similar inventory of myself as I did when I had my epiphany over a month ago.

Back then, I looked back through my life, and I couldn’t identify any periods of strong emotion, any periods of serious excitement. I resolved to change, and so I have, slowly. But I have looked over my life, and I have made the terrifying realization that there’s nobody left who I feel really close to.

At home? My friends...I’m drifting away from them. Jake, Matt, Nolan, James, Daniel, they’re all fun people, but they’re starting to feel farther and farther away. Dan, seems more of a kindred spirit, but he’s different from me in too many fundamental ways for me to really connect with him. Kait, closer than home, but somehow a million miles away. Travis, used to be my best friend, what can I call him now? We annoy each other too much to enjoy the intimacy (platonic, mind) we once had. We’ve drifted like icebergs.

At the university? All fun and good people. I’ll not say a word against any of them. But they’re friends in the transitory state. I certainly enjoy their company and want to hang out with them and do things with them, but when I think of who I’ll know in ten years and quickly run through everyone I know in Gainesville for possible candidates, not a single name pops up as likely.

Of course, there is my family. My parents, hopefully, will be around for years to come. I’ll always feel close to them. My sister, in recent years, we’ve become much closer than we were. For almost a decade, we were too far apart, too different, in worlds that were too distant for us ever to connect. Now we’re friends, more than friends, we’re true siblings again, like we used to be when we were both children.

A girl, too young yet to have a personality attached to her name, who stares at me with wide and uncomprehending eyes. She doesn’t know me, except as the weird guy who holds her while her mother ducks outside for a cigarette break or a ten-minute reprieve. I don’t know her, except as someone who can only communicate through cries and can already almost crawl at only two weeks old. Who will she be in ten years? I cannot say. There are none who can. I can only hope I’ll know her as she grows up, that my interaction with her won’t be limited to the occasional phone call and Christmases where I pinch her cheek and proclaim about how much she’s grown. (I will do this, though. There are certain ways in which an uncle is expected to act, after all.)

...Will she ever know my name? Will she ever know me beyond "that weird uncle I see on holidays"? Michelle's and my lifestyles will inevitably drive us apart. Will I see her grow up?

But beyond them...nobody.

Nobody.

...

I need a girlfriend.

This is not a sex thing. Trust me. If a mysterious stranger were to approach me tomorrow and promise that I would meet a girl with whom I could truly connect to on an emotional level, who could know me better than anyone and I her, with whom I could share my hopes and fears and dreams and pour out my soul, and the price for this was that I could never do anything sexual with her – or even kiss her – I would agree before he finished speaking.

I need a girlfriend.

(But sex wouldn’t hurt.)