Dr. Daedalus Yumeno (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gaveherwings) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
sirenspull2012-03-19 03:36 pm
gaveherwings) wrote in sirenspull2012-03-19 03:36 pm
[Voice]
This city...
The utter lack of planning for the future of its citizens is ever just-so-slightly disconcerting, troubling enough to bring me around and back to it again and again.
I do consider in stride that Romdeau, the city I've come from, was rigidly modeled and structured. That no single entity beyond the administrative body was permitted to extend its influence wildly over the population. But I also have to consider its ultimate crippled fate, for over-reliance on automated management. The dearth of options and openness, and what was sacrificed for order and a peaceable system. Still, I often hesitate to call it better or worse here.
And yet... there are small encounters which leave a man questioning these things, constantly. I don't speak about them over the network much, because it doesn't really suit the daily, casual discussions the newcomer community carries on here. Not everyone cares for speaking about societies. That and my, ah- unique perspective usually requires a good deal of preliminary explanation.
Still. It's good to hear some fresh opinions. There are some newer arrivals I haven't spoken with yet, or seen at the clinic.
I spoke to a new father today, as I was passing through delivery floor. He was waiting and anxious, and you could sense an air of joy and nerves. His son was perfectly healthy, seven pounds two ounces, no defects.
I asked- (because it's one of those questions I'm always curious to see new parents respond to, in a city like this) what he hoped his son would be, in twenty years.
(I should preface this by including that where I'm from, these matters were mostly preordained. Here, the way people find their way in the world is different, and so naturally it interests me a good deal.)
"Oh, it's far too early for me to say, isn't it?" He told me, and seemed sheepish at the question. And then we spoke a little more- eventually what came up was an avalanche of money problems. He just hoped his child would be able to find his way in the world, and not end up selling parts of himself to SERO, or AGI. Apparently, there had been some financial matters resolved with compensated donations, in his past...to pay for education, when funding for his scholarships fell through. Now, he was still out of a job. Corporate had laid him off.
"Well, I'm a newcomer, I've been in this city less than two years. If I can become a doctor here, then certainly anyone-"
He told me then that newcomers were part of the reason his funding was cut. It was a tense moment, but we resolved it like civil gentlemen- I wished him and his family well. We parted ways.
I wonder, sometimes, if it really is right of us to assert ourselves into this city. It would be respectful to let the natives have every opportunity first, of course, but then what would we be left with? I shudder to think. I also don't believe that they'd ever cease being so competitive among themselves- so a small immigrant population of 300 or so should really not make so significant a difference.
Moreover, I've worked for this position. I was made to be able to handle even greater things, even if that place was never assigned for me here. I shouldn't feel guilt, or strain, for doing well for myself- should I?
What a foolish thing, to struggle with these defensive feelings, even when every rational thought says I shouldn't bother.
The utter lack of planning for the future of its citizens is ever just-so-slightly disconcerting, troubling enough to bring me around and back to it again and again.
I do consider in stride that Romdeau, the city I've come from, was rigidly modeled and structured. That no single entity beyond the administrative body was permitted to extend its influence wildly over the population. But I also have to consider its ultimate crippled fate, for over-reliance on automated management. The dearth of options and openness, and what was sacrificed for order and a peaceable system. Still, I often hesitate to call it better or worse here.
And yet... there are small encounters which leave a man questioning these things, constantly. I don't speak about them over the network much, because it doesn't really suit the daily, casual discussions the newcomer community carries on here. Not everyone cares for speaking about societies. That and my, ah- unique perspective usually requires a good deal of preliminary explanation.
Still. It's good to hear some fresh opinions. There are some newer arrivals I haven't spoken with yet, or seen at the clinic.
I spoke to a new father today, as I was passing through delivery floor. He was waiting and anxious, and you could sense an air of joy and nerves. His son was perfectly healthy, seven pounds two ounces, no defects.
I asked- (because it's one of those questions I'm always curious to see new parents respond to, in a city like this) what he hoped his son would be, in twenty years.
(I should preface this by including that where I'm from, these matters were mostly preordained. Here, the way people find their way in the world is different, and so naturally it interests me a good deal.)
"Oh, it's far too early for me to say, isn't it?" He told me, and seemed sheepish at the question. And then we spoke a little more- eventually what came up was an avalanche of money problems. He just hoped his child would be able to find his way in the world, and not end up selling parts of himself to SERO, or AGI. Apparently, there had been some financial matters resolved with compensated donations, in his past...to pay for education, when funding for his scholarships fell through. Now, he was still out of a job. Corporate had laid him off.
"Well, I'm a newcomer, I've been in this city less than two years. If I can become a doctor here, then certainly anyone-"
He told me then that newcomers were part of the reason his funding was cut. It was a tense moment, but we resolved it like civil gentlemen- I wished him and his family well. We parted ways.
I wonder, sometimes, if it really is right of us to assert ourselves into this city. It would be respectful to let the natives have every opportunity first, of course, but then what would we be left with? I shudder to think. I also don't believe that they'd ever cease being so competitive among themselves- so a small immigrant population of 300 or so should really not make so significant a difference.
Moreover, I've worked for this position. I was made to be able to handle even greater things, even if that place was never assigned for me here. I shouldn't feel guilt, or strain, for doing well for myself- should I?
What a foolish thing, to struggle with these defensive feelings, even when every rational thought says I shouldn't bother.
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Good point. Nobody's as patient as you are at home. I went through four doctors in a week.
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Unless they're really so hung up on the caffeine intake.
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You stopped asking after three visits!
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Not that I've discouraged them.
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[He chuckles.]
Honestly, Yumeno, I wouldn't put too much stock in the complaints of native professionals. The job goes to the one who deserves it the most in an ideal system. People will come up with whatever scapegoats they want to blame when they fail something they had their sights on. If it wasn't Newcomers it'd be minorities, or vampires, or voids, or talking sheep, or whoever else slipped ahead of them.
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Siren's Port is hardly the ideal system. But it does leave me wondering, if I ever did deserve so much, or if it was simply designed for me that way.