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

[explosivecombat]

[...YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE HIM A SECOND TO STOP LAUGHING TO HIMSELF FIRST BECAUSE WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT - ]

Don't let it concern you too much either way, Locke.

[doitrockapella]

That doesn't help my curiosity at all, you know.

[explosivecombat]

It wasn't intended to.

[doitrockapella]

You ought to let me teach you to swim, though. One of these days.

[explosivecombat]

Oh? And why is that?

[doitrockapella]

There's an activity people sometimes engage in where I'm from — they make watertight goggles so swimmers can open their eyes underwater, and it comes with an apparatus to breathe through so you don't have to lift your face out of the water while you swim.

It lets you look around underwater and experience all the fish, without letting the light bouncing back off the surface of the waves get in the way.

[explosivecombat]

It sounds interesting, at any rate. Unfortunately, however, I'm more than content to observe from a distance.

[doitrockapella]

Until you fall in, at least.

[explosivecombat]

So far I've done rather well on that front.

[doitrockapella]

Even if you never use it, it's not as though you'd lose anything from having it.

But I understand. I'll leave it alone.

[explosivecombat]

You know, it's been a while since I've specifically asked you anything like this, but I admit I'm curious now:

You mentioned that I wouldn't lose anything from having something I never use, which is a fair point. In your opinion, however, does one lose something from not taking the opportunity in the first place, whether it's used or not?

[doitrockapella]

...I don't know. Logically, I suppose one doesn't? It's hard to say you've really lost something that you never had in the first place, and it's not as though not taking an opportunity — well, one like this, anyway — leaves you any worse than you otherwise would've been. You're just prevented from having something that might've made things better.

I remember the last time I voiced that logic about a given situation, too.

But since it's strictly my opinion you want, I suppose I feel as though it does? If nothing else, you've lost an opportunity to further pursue your potential, and if you only stand to gain something from it, I'm honestly not sure why you wouldn't.

[explosivecombat]

...Before I ask anything else, I'm going to verify that I'm actually not trying to prove a point, or look for some way to use your words against you, or what have you. It really is curiosity, nothing more.

Define "potential" for me, though, with regards to the way you keep using it.

[doitrockapella]

[All right, let her just...think about this one a minute.]

There's a quote I like very much, from a well-renowned poet in my world: "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." I think that's what potential is — the "how far one can go". I've spent most of my life doing things simply to see if I can, and when I succeed I set my sights higher and keep going because...

...I suppose I'm just not sure what else there is to do with life, if not to keep testing the experience to see what you're capable of.

Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a musician, a mathematician, an engineer, an inventor, an anatomist, a geologist, a cartographer, a botanist, a writer...a person could be satisfied excelling at any one of those pursuits, but he showed that it's capable to have all of them. If there really are limits somewhere to what a single person can do, then I suppose potential is what defines those outermost limits.