[So... if anything, this is just reinforcing his humanity? This is like when that Level 0 died, how even though he didn't feel it in the moment he needed to remember that his humanity still exists, in some form.]
That feels hard to believe.
[Before talking to Harold he had felt so isolated.]
But that's good, I guess. If you aren't surprised then that means my head isn't as fucking messed up as it feels.
[At least, he knows he has Harold who understands what he's going through, and that means a lot to him.]
I'm never going to say no to more books. I'll look both of these up to start with. I know George Orwell.
Believe me, feeling at your age that what you're going through is something completely new and never before experienced by another human being is utterly banal and to be expected. We've all gone through it -- I certainly have.
I gave you recommendations I felt were likely to be to your taste, but I have to admit that mine is more sentimental. I was reading Rilke again recently (an early 20th century German poet; Rainer Maria Rilke) and he is known apart from his poetry for a collection of letters he wrote to his protégé. Who, I must say, was older then than you are now. Here is an excerpt:
You are so young, all beginning is so far in front of you, and I should like to beg you earnestly to have patience with all unsolved problems in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, or books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not search now for the answers, which cannot be given you, because you could not live them. That is the point, to live everything. Now you must live your problems. And perhaps gradually, without noticing it, you will live your way into the answer some distant day.
Shit, you're making me sound like a normal goddamn teenager.
Rilke, huh? Never heard of him, but he's a powerful writer. [He enjoyed reading that. It must have meant a lot to the protégé.] And it sounds like when he wrote that he had lived a hell of a life.
I'm sorry to say that apart from the brain damage and the ability to dismantle reality, you seem exceedingly normal to me.
[ He thinks he can trust by now that Accelerator will find any candid jabs a mark of respect and not mockery. ]
I'm glad you liked it. It's always stuck with me. He was a complicated man -- born in Austria at the advent of World War I, he saw the worst of humanity but hoped there could still be something better. The book 1984, actually, is a commentary on the society Rilke found himself admiring.
I wouldn't know. Maybe they weren't, maybe they just didn't give a shit. It's not like any of those researchers liked me.
[So why would they ever bother?]
I guess I am. I've read poetry for school and didn't hate it. I never read it for fun back home, but we've got so much downtime here that I don't see why I shouldn't try expanding my fucking genre preferences.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
That feels hard to believe.
[Before talking to Harold he had felt so isolated.]
But that's good, I guess. If you aren't surprised then that means my head isn't as fucking messed up as it feels.
[At least, he knows he has Harold who understands what he's going through, and that means a lot to him.]
I'm never going to say no to more books. I'll look both of these up to start with. I know George Orwell.
no subject
I gave you recommendations I felt were likely to be to your taste, but I have to admit that mine is more sentimental. I was reading Rilke again recently (an early 20th century German poet; Rainer Maria Rilke) and he is known apart from his poetry for a collection of letters he wrote to his protégé. Who, I must say, was older then than you are now. Here is an excerpt:
no subject
Rilke, huh? Never heard of him, but he's a powerful writer. [He enjoyed reading that. It must have meant a lot to the protégé.] And it sounds like when he wrote that he had lived a hell of a life.
no subject
[ He thinks he can trust by now that Accelerator will find any candid jabs a mark of respect and not mockery. ]
I'm glad you liked it. It's always stuck with me. He was a complicated man -- born in Austria at the advent of World War I, he saw the worst of humanity but hoped there could still be something better. The book 1984, actually, is a commentary on the society Rilke found himself admiring.
no subject
[Not that Harold couldn't guess that on his own at this point.]
Really? You got a couple books of his you can recommend, too?
no subject
[ In other words, he'd have to let them in for them to even observe it to be the case. ]
Are you interested in poetry? The letters themselves are collected in a volume titled Letters to a Young Poet.
no subject
[So why would they ever bother?]
I guess I am. I've read poetry for school and didn't hate it. I never read it for fun back home, but we've got so much downtime here that I don't see why I shouldn't try expanding my fucking genre preferences.