Induction Reduction
Farewell to your Better Self
The air in the library was thick with the scent of aged paper and an unspoken melancholy. Sophia, her eyes reflecting the quiet knowing of a thousand years, looked first at Sylvia, who stood near a tall, dusty window, her gaze fixed on the indifferent sky.
If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.
— Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
Sophia: You’ve found a unique kind of peace, haven't you, Sylvia? A calm born from an absolute refusal to let hope take root in the soil of others.
Sylvia: (Her voice was a low, dry murmur.) Peace is a strong word. It’s more of an armor, Sophia. To look at everyone—a lover, a mentor, a friend—and require nothing of them. It’s the only way to safeguard your own heart from the inevitable collapse of their promise. Disappointment, you see, is just a failed expectation. If you expect zero, you achieve a kind of emotional invincibility. It's the cleanest break from the fantasy of their "better self."
Sophia: I understand the logic. It's perfectly sound, a fortress against pain. But tell me, when you build this fortress, don’t you find yourself trapped within it, looking out at a world that seems duller, flatter? Doesn’t that absolute neutrality, that emotional self-sufficiency, become a sort of solitary confinement?
Sylvia: What is the alternative? To keep setting a banquet table in the wind, only to watch every dish be overturned? We all carry a better self within our minds, a perfected version of the people we care for. It's a lovely ghost, but it's not real, and demanding that ghost appear in the flesh is an act of self-betrayal. My approach is simply a farewell to that ghost. It’s the practical choice.
Sophia: Pragmatism is a powerful tool, but it should not be the only one in your kit. The better self you mourn, the one we are saying farewell to, is often the one we are inspired to become when we see the best in someone else, even if they fail to live up to it. By expecting nothing, you may protect yourself from disappointment, but you also remove the mirror that reflects the highest potential—both theirs and, perhaps more importantly, your own. True wisdom isn't the absence of disappointment; it’s the courage to be disappointed and still choose to try again.
Sophia paused, letting the silence settle. She walked to the window and placed a gentle hand on Sylvia's shoulder.
Sophia: Is the comfort of never being let down worth the cost of never being pleasantly surprised? Or the risk of being a better person for someone?
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