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Jan. 22nd, 2004 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morganknightOkay, boys and girls, let's sing the Song of Infinite Frustration:
Fuck fuck fuck,
fuck fuck fuck,
fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck...
There is good news. I can say that much. The good news is that I've found Nhairis, and she's agreed to take me on as a pupil. I didn't even have to do a grand quest or something of the like -- she simply gestured at my sword and told me life is a quest.
She asked me if I liked making things difficult for myself. The honest answer is that yes, I do, at least sometimes. An unchallenged life is not worth living. A lack of adversity leaves a man weak and ill-suited to resistance. Challenges build strength. If I didn't work to lift a little more weight, a few more times, every day, for example, would I ever get stronger? Nooo.
Hell, I've let myself go. I realized that when I sparred with Nhairis. I used to be more skilled, more capable, but I lost my edge over the course of the past year. Too much time spent trying to rebuild my life, and figure out who I am and where I'm going. Not enough time practicing, let alone fighting.
Stephen, Cat, Irina, they don't understand what it's like, coming from no family -- as usual. But in this case, what they don't understand is what it's like having built yourself and everything you are from virtually nothing. Stephen, for example, was born into his intelligence. It's like a limb to a normal person -- it's there, not thought about much, a simple part of you. But me -- my limbs I've spent years honing, until my control over them is incredible. I can strike at someone with the force of all my muscles and still bring my hand to a stop just before I hit them. If I ingested alcohol, or damaged my nutritional balance, or otherwise disrupted the harmonic flow of energy within myself... that control would be gone.
Irina says I like to be in control. Yes. I am accustomed to it, but more than that, I expect it. I expect the best from myself.
Irina, oh God, what a disaster that was. First, I should have set a definite time. I was waiting an hour before she showed. I went through the Squil tunnel on the way to the diner, and she tells me about being mugged in a tunnel just a couple of weeks ago. Already a fantastic start to the dinner.
Dinner itself consisted mostly of me trying to find out why she keeps herself so aloof and separate from all my friends. That's bothered me. I feel like I have the choice of talking to her or hanging with the others, and that's not a choice I want to make at all with a girl. I tried to convince her to be better friends with everyone, and she said she'd try, but... She's got no *spark* in her, I guess. She doesn't have the sort of general enjoyment for living that Cat and Stephen and I do, I guess. I sort of yelled at her, which was stupid of me, but I was frustrated.
After dinner we drove around a bit, when suddenly she tells me I really want a girl like Cat, and it would be better if there were two Cats, one for me and one for Stephen. How dare she tell me what I want! I'm not a serious person, dammit. I like to laugh and joke and be silly, I'm only eighteen for heaven's sake! I like to fantasize about doing naughty things to hot naive ninja girls in a pile of money on an airship. Is that reality? No. I can live in reality, I can work with reality, and I WILL not have my fantasies, my silliness, my humor held hostage to guilt. I can't live with someone who needs to use guilt and self-deprecation to get compliments.
Irina needs friends. She needs to put herself together before she can succesfully strike up a relationship with anyone. So way to strike out, Rampage.
Dammit. Too frustrated to keep writing. More later.
Fuck fuck fuck,
fuck fuck fuck,
fuck fuck fuck fuckity fuck...
There is good news. I can say that much. The good news is that I've found Nhairis, and she's agreed to take me on as a pupil. I didn't even have to do a grand quest or something of the like -- she simply gestured at my sword and told me life is a quest.
She asked me if I liked making things difficult for myself. The honest answer is that yes, I do, at least sometimes. An unchallenged life is not worth living. A lack of adversity leaves a man weak and ill-suited to resistance. Challenges build strength. If I didn't work to lift a little more weight, a few more times, every day, for example, would I ever get stronger? Nooo.
Hell, I've let myself go. I realized that when I sparred with Nhairis. I used to be more skilled, more capable, but I lost my edge over the course of the past year. Too much time spent trying to rebuild my life, and figure out who I am and where I'm going. Not enough time practicing, let alone fighting.
Stephen, Cat, Irina, they don't understand what it's like, coming from no family -- as usual. But in this case, what they don't understand is what it's like having built yourself and everything you are from virtually nothing. Stephen, for example, was born into his intelligence. It's like a limb to a normal person -- it's there, not thought about much, a simple part of you. But me -- my limbs I've spent years honing, until my control over them is incredible. I can strike at someone with the force of all my muscles and still bring my hand to a stop just before I hit them. If I ingested alcohol, or damaged my nutritional balance, or otherwise disrupted the harmonic flow of energy within myself... that control would be gone.
Irina says I like to be in control. Yes. I am accustomed to it, but more than that, I expect it. I expect the best from myself.
Irina, oh God, what a disaster that was. First, I should have set a definite time. I was waiting an hour before she showed. I went through the Squil tunnel on the way to the diner, and she tells me about being mugged in a tunnel just a couple of weeks ago. Already a fantastic start to the dinner.
Dinner itself consisted mostly of me trying to find out why she keeps herself so aloof and separate from all my friends. That's bothered me. I feel like I have the choice of talking to her or hanging with the others, and that's not a choice I want to make at all with a girl. I tried to convince her to be better friends with everyone, and she said she'd try, but... She's got no *spark* in her, I guess. She doesn't have the sort of general enjoyment for living that Cat and Stephen and I do, I guess. I sort of yelled at her, which was stupid of me, but I was frustrated.
After dinner we drove around a bit, when suddenly she tells me I really want a girl like Cat, and it would be better if there were two Cats, one for me and one for Stephen. How dare she tell me what I want! I'm not a serious person, dammit. I like to laugh and joke and be silly, I'm only eighteen for heaven's sake! I like to fantasize about doing naughty things to hot naive ninja girls in a pile of money on an airship. Is that reality? No. I can live in reality, I can work with reality, and I WILL not have my fantasies, my silliness, my humor held hostage to guilt. I can't live with someone who needs to use guilt and self-deprecation to get compliments.
Irina needs friends. She needs to put herself together before she can succesfully strike up a relationship with anyone. So way to strike out, Rampage.
Dammit. Too frustrated to keep writing. More later.
