NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

[explosivecombat]

[TEXT; LOCKED TO doitrockapella]

The offer for conversation is always open, should you desire to take me up on it; I can't guarantee that I'll respond immediately, nor will it necessarily be the response you want, but I'll always respond in some way.

In the name of enlightened discourse.

Comments

[doitrockapella]

...

Then I'm...sorry. I was assuming.

Again.

This hasn't been the best of weeks for me, in that respect. I'm sorry.

[explosivecombat]

...no harm done on my end. Looking over what happened, I'm actually surprised you're the first to contact me about this.

[doitrockapella]

That's consideration I probably don't deserve. But that won't stop me from accepting it.

Given the events in question, you are the likely suspect, aren't you?

[explosivecombat]

Oh, of course - something the other alchemists from my world never let me forget, when they were here. So don't let it concern you; I'm used to it.

...Something on your mind, Locke?

[doitrockapella]

Honestly? I'm surprised you're talking to me.

Please don't take this opportunity to explain at length all the reasons why that may or may not be a misguided notion; I'm really not in the mood.

[explosivecombat]

Will you at least humor me if I ask you why you would think that?

[doitrockapella]

Our discussion the other day. Giving me the time of day might've fallen under the umbrella of "showing me kindness", I suppose.

It also didn't help that you told me to send your belongings to Goldenrod, and two days later a local landmark blows up. And in the same city as...

Whatever I was expecting, this wasn't it.

[explosivecombat]

Ah, that really didn't help my case, did it? Well, somehow I doubt my shrieking harpy of an associate bothered to pick them up, primarily because I didn't tell him they would be there.

But really, I do hope you're not under the impression that I'm going to hold that discussion against you forever.

[doitrockapella]

Well, they're waiting, whenever you get back to them. In wire settings; I hope that's not a problem.

With the way my impressions of things are going lately, I'm almost tempted to say it's safer at the moment to not have any in the first place. And just ask, to make sure I have the right one from the start.

[explosivecombat]

Of course it's safer.

Just the same, no one changed the world by playing cautious.

[doitrockapella]

You're aiming to make me feel better.

[explosivecombat]

How astute of you.

[doitrockapella]

Для этого я могла любить вас.

[explosivecombat]

Нет, если ты знаешь, что хорошо для вас.

[doitrockapella]

Fortunately, I do. Most of the time.

So I take it you're not through with me?

[explosivecombat]

Of course not. I'd be incredibly bored, otherwise - why on earth would I willingly do that to myself?

[doitrockapella]

It might've been a sacrifice you were willing to make for the sake of teaching a student a much-needed lesson.

[explosivecombat]

That would negatively impact me, however, making it a less-than-ideal tradeoff.

[doitrockapella]

Explain something for me, then? I don't understand.

[explosivecombat]

Go on.

[doitrockapella]

Is there a tradeoff occurring when you give gifts?

[explosivecombat]

What sort of tradeoff are you referring to? Be more specific.

[doitrockapella]

I don't understand where the difference lies. Sometimes I suggest you've done something to make me happy, and you're quick to point out how you benefit from it. Other times I'm reading ulterior motives into well-intentioned actions, which...I would think suggests that I'm supposed to believe there aren't any. Or at least the motives I'm interpreting are wrong.

Maybe I'm conflating something I shouldn't be. Maybe I'm assuming something that isn't there. But I don't understand why sometimes you want me to believe that what you're doing is motivated by selfish intentions, but others you're offended at the very presumption.

[explosivecombat]

I'll put forth that my motives are always going to be self-serving in some way, simply because I refuse to put others before myself; I've never understood why I should do things solely for the benefit of others, simply because I'm not experiencing any pleasure myself if I do that - it violates my own sense of Equivalent Exchange to participate in such things. So yes, in that way, doing positive things for others always benefits me.

However, when I do things that you'll benefit from - even if they benefit me somehow - that doesn't mean that you don't factor into it at all; furthermore, because everything I do benefits me in some ways, then I never act through obligation, because that implies that I don't want to do it in the first place. It's not the implication that I act through selfish intentions that bothers me, because that's entirely true and I'm not going to insult us both by trying to pretend that it isn't; it's the implication that I'm acting purely through selfish intentions (which would mean that I wouldn't do it in the first place, as acting for anyone else's benefit at all is inconvenient - but that's really quite the asocial way to live life, if you ask me, and I'm personally rather fond of compromise), or that I'm acting purely through obligation (which, again, makes no sense, and being made to do anything through obligation just makes me contrary anyway).

So there's a distinction there, I just don't think it's where you're assuming it is.

[doitrockapella]

So making me happy benefits you because it keeps me interesting, which entertains you...but that's not the sole...

...Does it make you happy, seeing that something you've done has made me happy?