Basement Chronicles

3.14 = Pie

"I confess, I don't know what to make from all this mess."

This Chronicle is brought to you by apple pie. In fact, I think a lot of problems could be solved with pie.

Anyhow, its Sunday, and I'm not hanging out with my friends in the dorm, attending awesome parties, or playing Megaman. Actually, I'm just sitting here admiring my eclectic collection of dishes and bills. Oh, and talking about doing so, of course.

So I found a note I'd written in one of my left-handed notebooks of yesteryear. It said "What can change the nature of a man?". While I'd love to claim this profound question as my own, I remember that my inspiration of this was from when I played "Planescape: Torment" for a brief while last year. The game featured a nameless undead hero who traversed the many planes and ages searching for his humanity that was deprived of him in his foolish attempt to achieve immortality. Of all of the Black Isle RPGs, I still think that this was the best, if for nothing else but sheer background and storyline.

As I couldn't sleep last night, partly because I was wide awake, and otherwise because my roomate was playing some pretty good guitar, I got to thinking about what I wrote. At one point in the game one of the bosses asks you this very question, and based on your intelligence level (of your in-game character, mind you), you have a certain list of replies to answer. One reply makes the boss really pissed, one lets you skip a nasty battle, one gains you a special ring, so on and so forth.

I couldn't remember what the options were, nor which I chose, so I got to thinking about what I'd choose if I had the chance to play it again. At first I thought about wisdom, knowledge gained by experience and age. However, watching an internet broadcast of Penn and Teller's Bullshit convinced me that learning doesn't really change anything integral, just gives you more tools to work with. For instance, a physics major from MIT explained on this show that there's a large collection of "energy vortexes" located in Sedona, AZ. That's a while north of here. I've been there, seen it. Nice place, but its nothing more than a tourist trap, not an interdimensional portal.

So after feeling that much worse about my college education, I realized that what makes me different from that evolutionary mishap of a physics major is that I am instead using my powers for the forces of awesome, and not "energy vortexes". Again, wisdom providing tools for life.

I bet his parents are proud of him.

Now that I think about it, wisdom was one of the options. Hmm. I can't remember if you that was the one she got pissed at, or if she gave you a ring for it. Damn, I'm gonna have to look at a walkthrough after this.

I got to thinking afterwards that the question asks about the "nature of man". I don't know what this refers to so I'm just gonna wing it. If you're looking to avoid my random insertion of computer philosophy, you can skip the next bit.

If humans are indeed systems, however complex, then they have the mathematical equivalent of an input and an output. "Input" can be based on any number of factors, chemicals in the brain, current events, emotions, what have you. Our "output" might be considered as our behavior, maybe even our emotions if you want to make it complicated, and perhaps our general approach to life.

I interpret the question to ask how to change the "in-between" part, the equation, the massive capacity for knowledge and learning that we stil have no idea how it works. And my answer is that we simply can't. We're programmed since birth, both by our environment and our genetics, to live and behave in a certain way.

However, I thought on it a minute, and found that in a way I'd already answered the question. Emotions, I believe, are the key. As I see it, they are both a cause and an effect in how we govern our lives. And what is the most powerful of all the emotions? The trump card that's kept us from pressing large, dangerous looking red buttons for thousands of years.

Fear.

Its what keeps us from killing ourselves, and it also keeps us from changing the way we live our lives.

You can make somebody so afraid of something they will stop at nothing to be away from it. I, myself, am deathly afraid of bees. I freeze up whenever one buzzes by be. Even bumble-bees, despite people constantly reminding me that they're pretty harmless. But no matter what, every time I hear that familiar buzz and see the yellow and black, I panic and forget what I'm doing as long as it takes to get away from something a thousandth of my size.

The same goes for other people, with fears of nearly anything you can imagine. Phobias, irrational, or maybe even sometimes rational fears of things in our daily life.

If we can harbor fears such as this, I have to wonder what kind of fears come standard with everyone.

Perhaps the fear of change?

I certainly have that. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be inclined to think they're lying if they say they don't.

So how do you change a system that can't be changed? Play it at its own game. We're intelligent animals, supposedly, but we still have a survival instinct wrapped tightly around our fears. You might be able to change someone temporarily with love, religion, or posessions, but lock me in a room with a pissed bumble-bee and watch what takes priority.

Needless to say I'm reinstalling Torment. I'll let you know if "fear" was on the list.