Rogue
Philosophy
Professor Munroe
Midterm Rough Draft
March 13, 2010
A contemplation of the inner self as informed by my abilities
You can say so much more in your head than you can ever put into words. We simply lack the language to adequately express the depth of our emotions. We can do so much more than "love" and "hate" and "care," but those words are all that we have to express the range of our feelings. Some languages offer more options for expression than others, but in the end it all boils down to an inadequacy.
When I absorb the consciousness of another person, I am struck by this inadequacy. Before I developed my abilities I knew that people were more complicated than they appeared on the outside, but the difference between our internal and external selves is even more drastic than we can imagine. Consider yourself for a second. As soon as you start to think "who am I?" your mind is filled with words and it becomes impossible to define yourself to the full extent of your being. It is a paradox that I only came to understand after seeing the inner selves of many others.
It is extremely noisy in my head with all the other consciousnesses that live there now. They all cry out for understanding and acceptance and, while details may change from person to person, the overarching desire to be understood and accepted can be found in everyone. Mutants and humans are not so different on the inside in that respect. Even polar opposites like Bobby and John don't seem so different to me anymore. They are ice and fire, good and evil, even-tempered and hot-headed - opposites. At least, that's how they seem, but if you could know them like I do (in that indescribable, awful, they-are-in-my-head-forever way) you would see why they were friends in the first place. They both just want someone to care about them, to not hate them for what they are. They just go about handling those desires in different ways.
Cody - my almost-boyfriend, my first kiss, by first vicitm - wanted someone to understand him. Ironically, he thought I could be that person and now I understand him better than he probably understands himself. For a long time Cody was the only invading presence in my head, so I had a lot of time to study his consciousness once I had figured out what was his and what was mine. Luckily, because we are all generally the same on that base level, it doesn't matter if I can't weed out all the different thoughts from mine; they coincide nicely with my own. It's the details like "took piano lessons" (me), "played pee wee football" (Cody), and "lives in Boston" (Bobby) that I have to pick apart. Otherwise I might ask for a Jaguars jersey for my birthday or show up at Bobby's house for Christmas.