24 ⚜ Anonymous Text / CW: abuse mentions

[restingstitchface]

Whether a man is a criminal or a hero is a matter of perspective.

But if you don't want to play your role anymore, and are removed from your motivation for being who you are, what do you do? Do you seek redemption and rehabilitation and transform as an individual, or do you repeat negative behavior? How much do you believe people change only because they are imPorted? In short, do you believe people can change?

If I had anybody willing to discuss this in private with me, I assure you, I'd not be raising the issue publically.

Thank you in advance.

Comments

[restingstitchface]

In a different sense? You are as much a witness to change as any other, be it in myself or someone you actually know.

[tacticianing]

You're asking me how I feel about change as a concept, then?

[restingstitchface]

Yes.

[tacticianing]

[A long, long pause as he finds the safest reply he can possibly give. Because, well, he has a lot of feelings here, and none of them are ones he'll want to get into.]

It's pointless to not accept that change will happen. I'm glad when it's change for the better, as long as the change is true.

[restingstitchface]

I see. And where do you think change originates, may I ask? On the inside or out?

[tacticianing]

I don't know if it's always the same like that.

[restingstitchface]

Ah. So you believe change is an impulse?

[tacticianing]

I think it depends. It can be.

[restingstitchface]

Right. I am quite interested to ask; have you encountered the argument that impulse originates in the soul? I don't believe in something so nebulous, of course, but the concept is fascinating.

[tacticianing]

What do you mean?

[So, no, he hasn't.]

[restingstitchface]

Consider how the soul is driven to justice. This quality lends itself to specific actions; people marching against injustice, even when people call their actions pointless. Others are driven by bravery and fold into the line.

What do I mean? To put it simply, impulses are unconscious thoughts transformed into action to enforce the nature of one's character! If the mind is conscious, controlled thought and judgment, what is the soul but the repository of unconscious desire and action?

[tacticianing]

I think I see what you're saying.

[He takes a bit to think this through. Having a possible logic puzzle put to him makes it easier and easier to disconnect his emotional rejection of this conversation from the question itself, and bury it.]

I would think that applies if it's who someone really is undoing changes made by outside influence, or changing things to fit them. Who someone really is can be buried until sometimes they don't remember.

An outside influence can impose changes that have nothing to do with who someone is. At what point has that change become permanent? At what point can it be reversed? No matter what, it always happened. Even if it's not the same changes as the outside influence intended, I can't see how that event wouldn't affect the person somehow.

Even now, I don't really understand this that well myself. The one you should be asking these things isn't me.

[restingstitchface]

[He takes his own time to answer. Having somebody exercise critical thought as a result of his guidance - it's evoking pride and satisfaction in something other than his research. Those feelings he experienced when lecturing a thoughtful student. The growth of potential, essentially, and his role in cultivating it. It's making him pause.]

Which is precisely why I won't be asking you any longer.

[It's his way of congratulating someone for being right! Not rudeness. Maybe.]

Regardless, I am pleased our conversation has grown into something potentially beneficial. As you went to all the trouble of continuing it with me, thank you.