You can't fly.
By Kistaro Windrider
Neither can I at the moment, at least not without a hang glider, a
catapult, and/or a helicopter. I'm not letting that hold me down,
though. Nor am I allowing my lack of being, in any other way,
particularly dragon-shaped keep me from learning what I can and
enjoying this life in the process.
What, exactly, about lacking scales and a tail is preventing you from
enjoying this life?
This time around, you just didn't wind up shaped right. You've been
thrust into an unfamilliar alien society with goals and priorities
incompatible with your own.
Take it as a challenge. What can you do to solve the problems facing
your life? How can you use The System(TM) to rise above the system-
without stepping on anybody in the process? What can you do to take
charge of your situation and *live*- no matter how you're shaped?
This life, you are not shaped like a dragon. Your soul is. It's an
interesting situation to be in, although one I for one would rather
watch than experience- too bad. It's not how things panned out.
The greatest difficulty I've encountered with appearing human is that
I am expected to act human- herd mentality and all. This does not sit
well with a creative, independent person of any species. I'm not one
to blindly follow- and that's caused more than a few problems.
But you know what? Those problems really, honestly don't matter
because *I won.* I escaped the system (went into homeschooling- a
move I should have pushed my parents harder for sooner) and promptly
rose above it by doing what I do because it is the intelligent thing
to do, the right thing to do, and what I choose to do above all other
reasons- without infringing upon others.
I am experiencing things that I would likely be unable to experience
in almost any other situation. I am sitting on an array of weird
chemicals shaped into an L-on-a-stand and covered with synthetic
material meant to sort of emulate the better traits of a particular
variety of plant. I am applying force to a set of upraised bumps that
give under the pressure of the short tentacles at the ends of my
forelimbs, to send carefully crafted electrical signals down a
surprisingly simple wire into an interesting box that only came to be
through unusual environments and a series of very fortuitous
accidents, connected to a glass screen covered with chemicals with
unusual properties getting shot by a high-speed ultraselective
electron gun. I am contemplating the fact that in a time period of 2.5
more revolutions of this planet relative to the local sun, I will be
departing in a metal box powered by fossil fuels to a large, expensive
construction designed for the explicit purpose of educating people
about what it looks like at night by darkening the place and putting
little dots of light on the ceiling from a big fiberoptic ball. I will
then be subjected to the interesting social challenge of keeping 500
basically selfish creatures from damaging the premises while
attempting to make them enjoy themselves and learn something they
didn't know about places other than Earth, as viewed from Earth, in
the process.
Now tell me where else I could do that.
Don't waste this chance. You've got one shot to experience what you
can while you're here, and I'm certain there's a hell of a lot of
stuff you just can't get anywhere else- every life has something, but
it's not hard to hide from that something.
What would be the advantage to passing it up?
--Kistaro Windrider |
