Innocent Facade

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I've realized something. It's not a good realization.

Let me explain myself, first. At the risk of stating the obvious, I am not a bold person. I never have been. I don't take risks, I tend to stay in my comfort zone. I crumble quickly under... Well, any sort of pressure at all, really. I'll be the first to admit it. I am a coward; A flake, craven, whatever you want to call it.

So. Naturally, when I first became a Capsuleer, I was a nervous wreck. Almost everything about it terrified me. Sticking wires into the back of my spine and skull terrified me. Flying - Alone - into space, despite being trained to do so for months at the academy, terrified me. Not being able to feel my body terrified me. The idea that I might be attacked by pirates terrified me. Warping and Jump Gates terrified me. The prospect of bumping into other ships terrified me. The possibility of accidentally flying into the sun...

Well. You get the idea.

Most of all, though, other Capsuleers terrified me. I'm going to write this down again because I can sometimes almost forget, even after a few months: Normal people... Baseliners, rather... Are terrified of Capsuleers, and rightly so. And when I was myself, so was I. 

I still remember the first time I signed into the Summit, my license still warm from the proverbial press, at the recommendation from my first agent, telling me it would help me to learn to talk with "others of my kind." The thought of interacting with people who held such tremendous power at their fingertips - people who could single handedly tear apart whole colonies, defense fleets and all, alone -  made we want to run for the hills. And when I saw what they were like, that is, bizarrely immature, petty, and oblivious of themselves... Well, that made it even worse.

I acted a fool. I stuttered, I cowered, I broke into outbursts when something offended me. It was sad. Pathetic, even. I forgot the teachings, and allowed my heart to be ruled by nothing but fear.

In time, though, most of those fears abated, and what was previously horrifyingly unimaginable to me has become (though still somewhat objectively disturbing) routine. I am not so afraid of flying. And I am no so afraid of my... "Kin", anymore, except in the most extreme of circumstances, when they present an actual real risk of attacking me physically. I can, for better or worse, share company with them with only moderate discomfort.

But what I've realized (or perhaps always known, and only just had to courage to consider) is that, yet, I still find myself playing the part.

Why? ...I suppose, in truth, it's nothing more then a means of protecting myself. 

Perhaps I feel that it makes others pity me, and that this grants me some measure of safety from them; That they would be reluctant to strike down something so weak, so powerless, so much less then what they are, as even the most hardened murderer would hesitate to strike down a child.

But I know this to be provably false. Though there have been rare acts of kindness and compassion, in general, capsleers care little for those beneath them, if they even recognize them as existing at all. And in fact I have suffered from such a perception, in the form of threats, hate, outright assault - It does nothing for me in this regard then make me appear a plump hare in a garden full of very, very hungry foxes.

So what is the true reason? The answer is obvious. For myself, of course.

Because it helps me to... Still feel apart, from them. It helps this world, the world of Capsuleers, of maddened war and death amongst the stars, feel alien. It helps me feel like a newcomer to it all, still, even though that status is fading. It keeps me from fitting in, and that pleases me. It pleases me too much.

By the Creator, why do I feel the need to do this? To harm myself so, by embracing such self-deception? I should not need to embark on such ridiculousness to convince myself of my separation. I know in my heart that I am different. I'm not like them - Not at all. My heart isn't filled with hate, filled with a desire for blood and death, or worse yet, simply the cold and hollow apathy of the void. I do not lust for wealth, for power, only for knowledge and understanding. 

Yet... It seems so easy, to forget this, at times. To talk as they do, to mimic their thoughts and words, like some household bird-No. Not like a bird. Like a child, desperately trying to elevate itself through emulation and imitation.

It is foolish. I am foolish.