Talkin' 'Bout My Regeneration
Aug. 24th, 2012 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerBeing born again is always terrifying, isn’t it? Or at least it should be. It certainly is for me. That moment…
Humans talk a lot of nonsense about freedom. They think it means having no limits. Well, they should try it. Try waking up with all your synaptic pathways blasted flat, nothing but an illimitable void where identity should be, a trackless waste land under an infinite sky. Believe me, freedom is the last thing you feel.
Some young things get a thrill out of it, like bungee jumping I suppose. They go through regenerations like pairs of underpants, trying on as many new selves as possible in the grace period, throwing themselves into danger–what, did you think those old fuddy-duddies on Gallifrey were the majority? There are more of us out here than in there. They just don’t like to admit it. But I was never like that. I loved life. My first life lasted centuries. It was only after I stole the TARDIS and ran away to the stars that things changed. I wore out one body, and in the blink of an eye the Time Lords took away another one, and that seemed to set the pattern.
The sensible thing to do when you regenerate is to behave like a tiger moved into a bigger cage. Follow the old paths as far as you remember them, trace the walls that are no longer there, till you start to get a sense of where the new ones are going to go. That’s what most of us do. That’s what I did, the first two or three times. But then I got scared.
I was on my fourth life–yes, that one–and I almost hadn’t made it. Without Kanpo Rinpoche’s help I would have died. And to tell you the truth, I thought my previous self had been tampered with. That was the one the Time Lords gave me, and while he wasn’t a bad sort in his way, I really didn’t like some of his attitudes. I didn’t like the idea that somehow they had got into my essence and rearranged things to suit themselves. I mean, who would?
So I started to try to think of a way I could apply a corrective, plan my own next life to suit myself. Some of us can choose faces, but I never had the knack. I think it may be gender-linked.
And then I remembered Cho-Je. He was a projection, a thought-form you might call it, of Kanpo Rinpoche, and when the old man regenerated, that was the form he took. Of course, he was a superbly disciplined thinker, and I was, well, me…but I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t try the same trick. It never occurred to me that I was making the oldest mistake in the book; trying to second-guess the future. Kanpo had reached forward to see who his next self would be; I was looking to control mine, to remould it closer to my hearts' desire..
I started trying to project a future self almost at once, but it was several years before I managed to achieve anything solid. That was my longest life so far, though, so maybe that counts. Anyway, when I finally saw him I realised at once that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that. He really was a mess; unformed, insubstantial, unstable. He could barely speak, and his precognition was sketchy at best. But he knew his cue. When my life ended, he was waiting, and by then it was too late to do anything other than go along with it.
Well, you know what happened. My fifth life, at the start, was–let’s be honest–a mess; unformed, insubstantial, unstable. My sixth was frankly unhinged. Both of them went on to do quite well, such as they were, but I was never happy with them. I never tried that trick again.
Yes, being born again is always terrifying. But that’s the way it has to be; a leap of faith into the dark, a levelling of the old to make room for the new–for the unforeseen. The freedom which has no limits is an illusion; that way lies madness and death. The control which denies randomness is an illusion; that way lies failure and frustration. Freedom and control are both grand things, but neither one is everything…and you only get so much of each.
Humans talk a lot of nonsense about freedom. They think it means having no limits. Well, they should try it. Try waking up with all your synaptic pathways blasted flat, nothing but an illimitable void where identity should be, a trackless waste land under an infinite sky. Believe me, freedom is the last thing you feel.
Some young things get a thrill out of it, like bungee jumping I suppose. They go through regenerations like pairs of underpants, trying on as many new selves as possible in the grace period, throwing themselves into danger–what, did you think those old fuddy-duddies on Gallifrey were the majority? There are more of us out here than in there. They just don’t like to admit it. But I was never like that. I loved life. My first life lasted centuries. It was only after I stole the TARDIS and ran away to the stars that things changed. I wore out one body, and in the blink of an eye the Time Lords took away another one, and that seemed to set the pattern.
The sensible thing to do when you regenerate is to behave like a tiger moved into a bigger cage. Follow the old paths as far as you remember them, trace the walls that are no longer there, till you start to get a sense of where the new ones are going to go. That’s what most of us do. That’s what I did, the first two or three times. But then I got scared.
I was on my fourth life–yes, that one–and I almost hadn’t made it. Without Kanpo Rinpoche’s help I would have died. And to tell you the truth, I thought my previous self had been tampered with. That was the one the Time Lords gave me, and while he wasn’t a bad sort in his way, I really didn’t like some of his attitudes. I didn’t like the idea that somehow they had got into my essence and rearranged things to suit themselves. I mean, who would?
So I started to try to think of a way I could apply a corrective, plan my own next life to suit myself. Some of us can choose faces, but I never had the knack. I think it may be gender-linked.
And then I remembered Cho-Je. He was a projection, a thought-form you might call it, of Kanpo Rinpoche, and when the old man regenerated, that was the form he took. Of course, he was a superbly disciplined thinker, and I was, well, me…but I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t try the same trick. It never occurred to me that I was making the oldest mistake in the book; trying to second-guess the future. Kanpo had reached forward to see who his next self would be; I was looking to control mine, to remould it closer to my hearts' desire..
I started trying to project a future self almost at once, but it was several years before I managed to achieve anything solid. That was my longest life so far, though, so maybe that counts. Anyway, when I finally saw him I realised at once that it wasn’t going to be as easy as all that. He really was a mess; unformed, insubstantial, unstable. He could barely speak, and his precognition was sketchy at best. But he knew his cue. When my life ended, he was waiting, and by then it was too late to do anything other than go along with it.
Well, you know what happened. My fifth life, at the start, was–let’s be honest–a mess; unformed, insubstantial, unstable. My sixth was frankly unhinged. Both of them went on to do quite well, such as they were, but I was never happy with them. I never tried that trick again.
Yes, being born again is always terrifying. But that’s the way it has to be; a leap of faith into the dark, a levelling of the old to make room for the new–for the unforeseen. The freedom which has no limits is an illusion; that way lies madness and death. The control which denies randomness is an illusion; that way lies failure and frustration. Freedom and control are both grand things, but neither one is everything…and you only get so much of each.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-24 02:43 pm (UTC)