C16 A talk at lunch (2)

Tomar didn’t answer.

“Because if they did, the men they are after wouldn’t take any interest in them, either.”

Tomar flapped his ears. “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

“The truth is, I learned everything I need to know about your world the first day I was here.”

Tomar laughed. “Boy, you are just too much. You’re just a truck stop hick, what could you possibly understand about our world?”

Gerald blinked, wondering if Tomar had actually said the phrase ‘truck stop’ or some Taulirian equivalent that the device on his ear had translated as “truck-stop.’

“Look, I’m not a truck-stop hick.”

“You’re not?”

“No. Heck, I wish I was a truck stop hick. We didn’t even have a truck stop. I’m lower than a truck stop hick. All we had was the galaxy’s biggest ball of twine. And even that was a lie. The ball of twine on Metrion is actually much bigger.”

Tomar shook his head. “How can you so easily dishonor your homeland like that? My father would kill me if I said anything bad about Majara to an outsider. I don’t see how you can you be so self-deprecating.”

Gerald picked up another piece of fruit. “It is easy to be honest when you’re not trying to impress people.”

“Impress?”

“Yes, don’t you see that is everything in your world? That is the height, width, and depth of it.”

Tomar breathed deeply and then sat back, his interest piqued. “Go on.”

“Okay, look at this school. People everywhere say that they love learning, and they’d love to come here, but the reality is that anyone can get a free education from the best schools by sitting in unofficially at the classes and forgoing the credentials. But, how many people actually do that?”

“Almost no one does.”

“Precisely, because credentials impress people, credentials make you a more suitable mate; so people prioritize credentials over education, even though they claim otherwise.”

Gerald tapped his fork onto the back of his neck. “Think about the connection you have to Central. With it, you have instant access to the history, art, and philosophy of a thousand worlds, but what do people use it for?”

Tomar sat there in silence, unwilling to answer.

“Your professors say they choose their careers for the love of learning and teaching, but listen to their conversations, what do they talk about?”

Tomar looked away. “Office gossip.”

“Indeed. When they get tenured, their output should go way up, instead it goes way down. Overall, they are basically deceiving themselves. They tell themselves they care about all these other things, but when push comes to shove, they always follow the priorities our genes use to control our actions. By their behavior they show it is ultimately more important to them that others see them doing things, than it is to actually do things, because impressing others is how you achieve a high-quality mate, and that is the only thing our biology really cares about.”

A chair reformed itself and Cleylselle sat down, carrying a tray of jumping, cricket-like things. “Forgive me for eavesdropping, I was listening in, hoping Tomar would betray some fact that would help me win the Duchess before he could, but this is almost as interesting.”

“Be my guest.”

Cleylselle scooped up a bug and tossed it into his mouth. It gave off a little shriek as he bit into it. It reminded Gerald of the old black-and-white movie “The Fly” so much that he had to stop himself from laughing.

“Now,” Cleylselle began. “It sounds to me like you are arguing that people can’t be altruistic. I would disagree, many of the wealthiest families are also the most passionately devoted to charity.”

“I’ve been a monk for years, and I’ll tell you right now that most people who are passionately devoted to charities actually give them very little, and don’t seem to check up on how their money is spent. Did you know that most of the largest charities give less than two percent of their donations to the cause itself?”

“I... I didn’t know that.”

“Most people don’t. And they don’t realize that many charities only raise awareness for a cause. That means they buy a few ads and then pocket the rest. None of it goes to real research. No, those wealthy families just attend the public events to show off, because it only matters that other people be impressed by their devotion to charity. It doesn’t really matter to them if people get helped.”

Cleylselle grew a little grim at this, his skin shifting to a darker shade of grey.

“Now, please don’t take offense,” Gerald bade them. “It doesn’t make them cold or evil, it’s just the way they are programmed to behave.”

Gerald directed them to look about the lunchroom with new eyes. In one corner Enass from Class 3-C expertly played the Zithero for a girl. Hundreds of hours spent just to acquire a skill to impress her.

Off to one side, they watched Tausav present an expensive gift to the radiant Kzoyohaan. Not radiant like beautiful, but radiant like a Halloween glow stick. Tausav came from a less-affluent family and probably saved up for months just to buy it for her.

At the table next to them, they saw Entayta furiously studying accounting, which he despised, because it will lead to a more lucrative career than what he really loved, which was graphic design.

Rynvanour sat amongst her friends, deftly and meticulously applying makeup to make herself more appealing. Her friend Occonflen stared at her empty plate, practically starving herself just to make herself more attractive.

In the corner, a pair of seniors raised their voices, fighting over a girl.

Gerald leaned in close to Cleylselle and Tomar. “You are now seeing society for what it really is. A battleground of esteem. Trillions of people fighting tooth and nail to reproduce with the best mate possible. And why? Because that is what our genes have programmed us to do.”

The two boys glanced at each other uneasily.

“Now you both finally begin to see the truth.”

“And what is the truth?”

“That you are a slave. Born into a body of chains. A cage for your mind. We give them velvety names to soften the blow. We call them instincts, emotions, passions, but words do not change what they are. They are controls. Shackles to force you to behave the way you are designed to behave.”

Cleylselle wiped a little sweat from his grey brow. “But, aren’t those instincts also survival tools? Don’t they benefit us?”

“Perhaps they did in ages past. Resources were scarce, villages were small and isolated and mortality rates were high. In those days, it was a benefit to force everyone to breed as often and with as high a quality mate as possible. But times have changed. There are 180 quadrillion people in the galaxy now, and the instincts that once protected us from extinction are only a liability now. That is the core tenant of Soeck, o evolve past our instincts to the next level of existence and free ourselves from their control over us. To achieve Vashrya.”

Tomar leaned in, his orange eyes focused. “So, how do we break out of it?”

“Are you looking to join Soeckism or would you like the short version?”

“Definitely the short version.”

“Very well. Find something you want to do, and do it without praise, do it without fanfare. Do it and plan on never showing it off to anyone. Do it that way and it will be truly yours. You will be acting because you choose to, and not because your body compels you to.”