Why shouldn't it matter if you mind? I almost never have any choice. Most of us don't, I suppose, which is why we ought to seize what opportunities we can.
[Not the most uplifting message either, perhaps, but a sight better than complete resignation, Dirk feels. Of course he does: it's his strategy for combating his own inutility, his own helplessness in the face of an impossibly large, complex universe, a universe which uses him but has no concern for him whatsoever. And never mind people -- people are in some ways even more complex, and even more callous. One may, of course, resign oneself to that. Dirk, however, is stubborn, and vastly prefers the sensation of hope, of optimism, to the alternative. He takes joy where he can find it, and has thus become rather adept at sniffing it out.]
Like me, I suppose. I had the opportunity not to learn how to assemble a tent and I took it.
[Not that he's sitting on his laurels now. Obviously, tent-construction is a skill he's simply going to have to pick up, and this fellow isn't nearly as obliging as, say, Todd, and therefore cannot be relied upon to do it in future, at least not without much grumbling, and not of the generally fond sort Todd had, over the course of their admittedly rather short acquaintance, grown wont to employ.
Dirk truly hopes Todd is all right. Will be all right. He hopes all of them are. Dwelling on that, however, is apt to drag him directly down the road to panic, and so instead he sets about watching, learning: this goes here, that goes there. He's not, perhaps, the quickest study, but he's reasonably intent.]
Mind you, where I come from, most of us don't have to. I suppose we also risk death, but only under some pretty specific circumstances which most people, I think, spend their time either ignoring or avoiding. I mean, not that I've never had to sleep out of doors, it's just that most of the time there's something ready-made, isn't there? Not that I'd recommend sleeping in a skip, exactly. It smells awful.
no subject
[Not the most uplifting message either, perhaps, but a sight better than complete resignation, Dirk feels. Of course he does: it's his strategy for combating his own inutility, his own helplessness in the face of an impossibly large, complex universe, a universe which uses him but has no concern for him whatsoever. And never mind people -- people are in some ways even more complex, and even more callous. One may, of course, resign oneself to that. Dirk, however, is stubborn, and vastly prefers the sensation of hope, of optimism, to the alternative. He takes joy where he can find it, and has thus become rather adept at sniffing it out.]
Like me, I suppose. I had the opportunity not to learn how to assemble a tent and I took it.
[Not that he's sitting on his laurels now. Obviously, tent-construction is a skill he's simply going to have to pick up, and this fellow isn't nearly as obliging as, say, Todd, and therefore cannot be relied upon to do it in future, at least not without much grumbling, and not of the generally fond sort Todd had, over the course of their admittedly rather short acquaintance, grown wont to employ.
Dirk truly hopes Todd is all right. Will be all right. He hopes all of them are. Dwelling on that, however, is apt to drag him directly down the road to panic, and so instead he sets about watching, learning: this goes here, that goes there. He's not, perhaps, the quickest study, but he's reasonably intent.]
Mind you, where I come from, most of us don't have to. I suppose we also risk death, but only under some pretty specific circumstances which most people, I think, spend their time either ignoring or avoiding. I mean, not that I've never had to sleep out of doors, it's just that most of the time there's something ready-made, isn't there? Not that I'd recommend sleeping in a skip, exactly. It smells awful.