Humanity

A Stoic Short Story…

Walking down the bustling highway of a college hall these days resembles more of a raceway than a school’s halls.

Jace is one of very few students at this prestigious school who still walks around in shoes. His parents born in the 1990s prided themselves on a healthy lifestyle and sustaining the health of one’s body so Jace feels much the same. Though the mass majority don’t feel that way any longer.

Beep! Beep! Beeeeep!

A hovering scooter with a hefty student riding within as the back end barely hovering above the ground as they honk their little horn at Jace for walking in their way.

Beep! Beep!

“Move along you bipedal freak!” This large scooter dweller yells.

It’s 2043 and the majority of people choose to ride around on hover boards, scooter and skates. Based on the chosen vehicle usually tells you the athletic importance they place on their bodies. There are more scooters than any other type of hover vehicle as most don’t want to exert themselves physically. Most see fitness as a waste of time.

Jace is in a very small minority of people who choose to walk, run or use a bicycle to go places. While living at University no one needs anything bigger than a scooter to get around.

Jace being an old soul as most people refer to him as, is aware of the latest tech and what not. But, he chooses to often go for more out dated tech saying, “it has more feeling to it. A soul.” Often with a polaroid camera around his neck and a iNotePad instead of an imPlant, Jace is seen as an outcast. Not to mention from a desire to walk he is one of very few fit people in his school.

Running up beside Jace is his friend Phil, “Hey Jace! Wait Up!” Jogging up to Jace zig zagging between a highway of heavy scooter-ers on auto pilot flowing in sequence. Bumping into them all as he makes his way up to Jace.

The hefty patrons yelling at him as if having a small bit of hall-way-road-rage. “Fleebin’ Walkers!” These scooter folk say hovering with hardened looks of melted disapproval.

“Jace! I got the new imPlant!” Phil holds up his arm to Jace. Then to Jace’s pre-modern drone camera that shoots his DocYou Channel.

“Why did you get that put in you Phil?!” Jace proclaims!

“Because it’s cool and I may like old tech, but I like new things too. Aren’t I doing enough by walking all the time?” Phil pleads.

“Eh, it’s cool just not for me.” Jace retorts.

Angling to Jace’s drone, “Jace just stop and check this out.” Phil taps his forearm and it begins to glow under his skin and a hologram projects from his arm.

A monitor and keyboard of an “old school year 1976 apple desktop computer” the two say in tandem, appears in front of them.

Phil states, “this good sir Jace is my desired design.”

“Now I will admit,” Jace turning to his drone, “this is pretty awesome!”

Looking around at all angles of the hologram Jace is enamored at the detail, “I have only seen one of these things in person in VR! The design was so ahead of it’s time and apple only got better from there.” Jace pulls out his collectable iPhone XR with original lightning cable headphones and shows it to the drone. “This company made some cool stuff in my parent’s day.”

“So where are we off to?” Phil asks.

“We are off to shoot the interview we set up with Professor Melbrooke.” Jace informs as he begins walking to the professor’s office.

“Oh yeah! That super old Professor Melb…something who has been alive for like two hundred plus years, right?”

“Exactly, I want to know what it was like back then and how he feels about people now.” Jace explains to Phil.

“Are we shooting this one with the vintage digital camera?” Phil asks.

“Yes,” pulling it out of his backpack and handing it to Phil, “I will want you to hold it instead of the stand.”

“Oh cool! Yeah I like the slight movement of breathing in the shot. It’s like you are there. Old school VR.” Phil says chuckling.

Jace holds open the door for Phil as they enter Professor Melbrooke’s class. As they approach his office to knock the door is abruptly opened.

“Ah boys welcome! Boys is ok to say still, right?” The Professor says with a slight mechanical sound to his voice. “Apologies for the voice my artificial voice box needs repair so I sound more like a robot.” The Professor says laughing.

“Not a problem Professor. And yes boys is quit accurate especially with someone of your stature.” Jace says as he packs up the drone and sets up the digital camera.

“Oh wow I haven’t seen one of those video cameras in quit some time.” The Professor admires the camera as if it was a fond memory.

After the Professor was done admiring the old camera as the tapping of his artificial fingers sounded like the nails of a tiny dog excited to go for a walk.

Handing it back to Jace who sets all the proper functions and hands it over to Phil,“Alright…” says Jace.

“Three two one…” Phil points at the two gesturing to start.

“Professor Melbrooke great to have you on my show. I first would like you to introduce yourself and what you have been studying through your vast life.” Jace opens up with.

Clearing his artificial throat before speaking the Professor chuckles, “well I suppose thats a good place to start. My name is Percy Melbrooke and I have been a doctor, scientist and professor of clinical psychology and human tendencies. As you can see I am not all human; most of my body parts have been replaced with cybernetics to extend my time alive. I still retain some human traits like clearing my throat despite not having one anymore for that matter. In my work I have been fascinated by what makes people tick and I have been doing this work for over 150 years now and will be turning roughly 200 years old soon. Or what’s left is turning 200.” Lightly chuckling again as to lighten the awareness of the elephant in the room so to speak.

Jace nodding along and asks, “I suppose where we will begin is… what was life like for you before these cybernetic upgrades?”

The Professor stands up and goes to his chalk board and uses his extendable arms to clean the board top to bottom… “as you can see there are plenty of benefits.” Then drawing a line in the middle of the large board from left to right and drawing one parallel line on the far left, “I was born here…” going down the timeline to about one fourth of the way, “this is when I was around 50 years old and up to that point I had been dealing with a relentless auto-immune disorder that ravaged my body.”

Jace asks, “so this was before we established a cure for auto-immune issues such as you describe?”

“Yes, the treatments were the only option and so before the cures came I had to result to prosthetics. Thing is that wasn’t a problem for me as my brain and mind were where my talents reside. So as long as I had my brain I figured the future could fix what wasn’t working and it worked.” The Professor stated as he jotted all the times he had replacements on his drawn timeline til this point.

Jace follows up with, “so then Professor it is safe to assume these enhancements as we call them today were a positive addition to your life?”

“There is plenty more physically I can do now than I ever would have so it has greatly increased the time and range of my studies. I don’t sleep as much due to no large energy demands from the parts I have left, when the brain needs to rest I can set everything else to clean up, and due to the fact I am 80% cybernetic means I have a far more improved time of capturing breakthroughs. These enhancements have allowed me to become one of the greatest minds of many generations.” The Professor said as he listed them on the board at the same time while keeping eye contact with Jace. His hands and torso operating behind him as if like some kind of owl professor.

An awkward pause is felt as the mood became somber to break the tension Jace asks, “is there maybe a negative side as well?”

“Yes, everything has its price.” The Professor takes a long slow breath (despite not having a respiratory system) and continues, “the price I have paid over the many years is my humanity. Not in the villainous sense, though there is a massive connection to who we are and what we feel through our human and biological senses. As more and more of my body became replaced I wasn’t able to experience the world the same. With all my senses being artificial more or less now, I don’t experience life as I remember. Everything is contextually the same, but to me feels hallow or like a copy.”

“What have you learned from this realization over these years?” Jace prompts.

“I think fondly of my first 50 years as I have lots of it recorded I know the memories are accurate. Even though I was gravely sick all the time and my life was destined to be rough and short, for the times; I relish all the feeling I had then. I even miss the constant and variety of pain I experienced.” The Professor then pauses to gather the right phrasing. “As biological creatures you live each day because it will end sooner and sooner as you age. Spending that time in pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the world and its beauty is the truest way to commune with the divine or what some would call God. Take stock of what is around you and how wonderful it is to learn about it.”

“I see…” Jace says as he gathers all this information, “being hungry and curious of yourself and the world. Staying present to the now as it were.”

“Yes to a degree. When in those first 50 years I knew I could die at any time due to the conditions placed upon my physical body so I made sure that I learned as much as I could and that is what made me the academic I am today. I have always been a student first and curiosity is the driving force.” The Professor sums up.

“Based on how you have stated its important to be connected with understanding the world and yourself, what do you think of these current times?” Jace adds next.

“I remember a time when I was in the early years of my Professorship and the halls of a college would bustle with the youth of exuberant students paving their way. Most people understood that their body was best kept healthy; to the best of one’s ability. For myself when my condition had gotten worse I ate a pure carnivore diet and that brought some momentary relief. What I see now is….” the Professor gathering the right words pauses. Even the cybernetics stopped as his whole body sat itself down and diverted all energy to mental processing.

“What I see now is briefly unfortunate.” The Professor surmises.

“Briefly?” Jace prods.

“Yes, very briefly.” The Professor says as his cybernetic body stands up again and continues to write along with, “history is vast and what I have come to realize is that the pendulum will swing back and forth between extreme left and right. We are just seeing an extreme.”

“Why do you think that most people now a days choose the easiest path?” Jace asks.

“Good question, if you choose a path that doesn’t demand discipline you can still go on living a standard existence and experience the basic waves of life. But! If you choose to listen to your soul and focus on what you were placed here to do in your life will trigger the beginning of your story. To bring out one’s greatness and share their gift with the world is what makes a world worth living in.” The Professor finishes and has a warm grin on his face.

“What advice would you lend to those who choose to scooter through life so to speak?” Jace asks looking at the camera sporting a cheeky smile knowing he will see some fun comments later.

Laughing at the underhand of the question the Professor says, “I would offer… You need to hurry! To have a body that feels and one that wasn’t born with affliction besides the ones you inflict upon yourself, is a gift. Do not squander the wonders you can experience when the body is strong and healthy. Reach for every last drop of life while you can still taste it. You will miss the scents of glorious experience and the feeling of warm love from the sun.”

“Well, that was quit the conversation Professor Percy Melbrooke and we all thank you for the wisdom and the dedication to understanding you have.” Jace finishes his show and Phil turns off the camera.

“That was great!” Phil exclaims having been holding that in the whole conversation.

“Boys.” The Professor prompts, “when you leave today I have one request.”

“Anything.” Both say in tandem.

“Safely of course, but could you sprint through the halls full speed until you get tired. Once you have done that find yourself a patch of grass to lay in. Hug a tree. Remember how that all feels. Some day you will cherish those feelings.”

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This story was inspire by Marcus Aurelius and the third passage of his third book of Meditations:

“Not just that every day more of our life is used up and less and less of it is left, but this too: if we live longer, can we be sure our mind will still be up to understanding the world-to the contemplation that aims at divine and human knowledge? If our mind starts to wander, we’ll still go on breathing, go on eating, imagining things, feeling urges and so on. But getting the most of it of ourselves, calculating where our duty lies, analyzing what we hear and see, deciding whether it’s time to call it quits-all the things you need a healthy mind for… all those are gone.

So we need to hurry.

Not just because we move daily closer to death but also because our understanding-our grasp of the world-may be gone before we get there.”