Fill: Tabula Rasa (1/?)swiftmintSeptember 15 2011, 15:37:45 UTC
As mentioned, cross posted, so I have 10 parts I'll be putting on her today. Pardon any lag as I have to reformat some of this as I go. :3
Tabula rasa. The clean slate. The hypothesis that people are unknown quantities. Profoundly undefined. Starting with nothing more to their name than an empty mind and the task of finding things with which to fill it. That specific purpose in life is completely unavoidable, of course. Where you can find a choice in it is what you fill it with. Baseball statistics, memories of family vacations, equations, pot roast recipes, or deep philosophical, and likely truly pretentious observations... that was your free will.
... and that was Tabula Rasa.
As a geneticist, Charles was required to find this theory somewhat unlikely. To disregard nature so soundly in favor of nurture was utter lunacy to someone who owned two first edition copies of On the Origin of Species. That wasn't his only reasoning of course. The idea of a complete clean slate at birth seemed far too simplistic and banged harshly of someone who was searching for an elegant solution so hard that they broke the mold to make their theory fit. Minds were complex, you could stare into a mind for a hundred years and still find you're only seeing the surface, childrens minds sometime more so.
At least that had been Charles's experience until this very moment.
All it took was an innocent brush of skin on skin in a crowd, and he suddenly found himself with more sympathy for John Locke. The mind he'd just glimpsed wasn't tabula rasa, but it was close. He spun, searching for the owner of the mind and finding only the anonymous backs of dozens of rushing travelers.
"Charles, are you alright?"
Charles snapped his line of sight back to his sister, not having realized it had wandered in the first pace. He recovered as best he could, though that only amounted to a fumbled smile and a straightening of his shoulders, "I'm sorry, what?"
Raven's gaze was sharp and knowing, her lips pursing in that way they did when she wanted very badly to say something. As usual, Raven not being the type to hold back her opinions, she voiced them soon after.
"Was that..?"
"A minor slip, nothing more." He cut the question off with an assuring gesture, "Someone brushed my arm on accident, it's bound to happen on a crowded platform."
She didn't look at all convinced, but a man knocking his suitcase into the back of her knees redirected most of her anger. She gracefully lifted her middle finger at the man's back for a good two seconds before Charles clapped his hands over hers and hid the gesture between them. The crowd milled around them, too concerned about getting to their own trains to care much about Raven's displays.
"And you worry about me." Charles said in loving exasperation, pointedly not letting go of her fingers in case she decided to bite her thumb at a passing authority figure.
"Me giving that asshole the bird and you accidentally melting someone's brain are on two entirely different tiers of worry." Raven informed him shortly.
Charles sighed, "I didn't melt his brain, I just caught a glimpse of it."
"and?" She prodded.
Charles framed a look at her that clearly said, 'and what.'
"Don't give me that," Raven shot back, "You looked like he walked up and licked your ear. Something is weird, and it's going to bother you, so just tell me and you'll get over it quicker."
Tabula rasa. The clean slate. The hypothesis that people are unknown quantities. Profoundly undefined. Starting with nothing more to their name than an empty mind and the task of finding things with which to fill it. That specific purpose in life is completely unavoidable, of course. Where you can find a choice in it is what you fill it with. Baseball statistics, memories of family vacations, equations, pot roast recipes, or deep philosophical, and likely truly pretentious observations... that was your free will.
... and that was Tabula Rasa.
As a geneticist, Charles was required to find this theory somewhat unlikely. To disregard nature so soundly in favor of nurture was utter lunacy to someone who owned two first edition copies of On the Origin of Species. That wasn't his only reasoning of course. The idea of a complete clean slate at birth seemed far too simplistic and banged harshly of someone who was searching for an elegant solution so hard that they broke the mold to make their theory fit. Minds were complex, you could stare into a mind for a hundred years and still find you're only seeing the surface, childrens minds sometime more so.
At least that had been Charles's experience until this very moment.
All it took was an innocent brush of skin on skin in a crowd, and he suddenly found himself with more sympathy for John Locke. The mind he'd just glimpsed wasn't tabula rasa, but it was close. He spun, searching for the owner of the mind and finding only the anonymous backs of dozens of rushing travelers.
"Charles, are you alright?"
Charles snapped his line of sight back to his sister, not having realized it had wandered in the first pace. He recovered as best he could, though that only amounted to a fumbled smile and a straightening of his shoulders, "I'm sorry, what?"
Raven's gaze was sharp and knowing, her lips pursing in that way they did when she wanted very badly to say something. As usual, Raven not being the type to hold back her opinions, she voiced them soon after.
"Was that..?"
"A minor slip, nothing more." He cut the question off with an assuring gesture, "Someone brushed my arm on accident, it's bound to happen on a crowded platform."
She didn't look at all convinced, but a man knocking his suitcase into the back of her knees redirected most of her anger. She gracefully lifted her middle finger at the man's back for a good two seconds before Charles clapped his hands over hers and hid the gesture between them. The crowd milled around them, too concerned about getting to their own trains to care much about Raven's displays.
"And you worry about me." Charles said in loving exasperation, pointedly not letting go of her fingers in case she decided to bite her thumb at a passing authority figure.
"Me giving that asshole the bird and you accidentally melting someone's brain are on two entirely different tiers of worry." Raven informed him shortly.
Charles sighed, "I didn't melt his brain, I just caught a glimpse of it."
"and?" She prodded.
Charles framed a look at her that clearly said, 'and what.'
"Don't give me that," Raven shot back, "You looked like he walked up and licked your ear. Something is weird, and it's going to bother you, so just tell me and you'll get over it quicker."
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