[There was nothing so outlandish in seeking out the familiar, so far as Combeferre knew it, no. For the moment, it granted him some comfort, some chance to try to gather his thoughts together easier if he had some kind of reasoning behind it. Trying to stay together for a friend who had more than helped him with that task before was one of those things that he hoped would help at least a little. For a moment, he simply stayed there, at last reaching a hand to stroke Jehan's hair a bit as he considered everything.
He wanted to tell the other man that it would be all right, but would it? Things were so uncertain. It was not exactly depressing not to know, but it was rather...worrying all the same, when he let it be. But not stupidity of course.]
Nor are you stupid, or ignorant or whatever else we seem here. We have missed so much though. How does...
[Combeferre paused a moment, not sure how to go about saying the next part, but to come out with it.]
There are...reasons I have not been back to the medical lab as something other than a patient. So much to unlearn and then learn again...I do not... You know I never back down from challenges but some of those are simply...how... How does anyone...
I do not know that we CAN catch up. I fear we won't, and will forever be behind. I do not mean that I don't want to try but... I could spend my life in trying, so could you, and we would never at the same place...I do not like it, how ignorant we are here. As far as progress...
[Combeferre is scowling as he considers that.]
What we consider progress, what I still consider it is not so ... it is not hear as far along as anyone would imagine. I've found a statesman I admire, from a hundred and thirty years after our time. For him, progress would be the same as we had hoped for. Peace and considering the...he calls them the wonders of science. To think that so many years had passed, and we are left with the same major problems, while the superficial ones are solved easly, or we create more problems for ourselves, istead of looking to the issues...no, it is not progress. I don't know that it ever shall be. Or what it means for us and being here. There are the times that I feel...trapped.
Worse social ills, and violence... what did we fight for then, if this is what we are left with? I've asked the question to that myself, and I have no answers to it. God knows I wish I did.
It seems to me sometimes, in science, that so much of what we're looking at happened because it was easier for someone to see if they could do something without thinking of the results. Could. Not should, and not because it would be better. It's given us such a mess. I think that men are much the same, for all that they proclaim that they are better. What have humans done, Jehan, with all that has been given them? What has Paris done, that it has not come to what we knew must be there?
I think that we have been deceived. I truly do. Enjolras...I can hardly bring this up with him. He suggested, promised, that we died in the future's radiance, but if this is to be that radiance he promised...besides all of you being here...there is so little to make me want it. I should be ashamed for that too, but I cannot be. Not when it seems to have meant so little, when our work has meant so little.
How does one go on from that? Can we, in any way?
[Combeferre only wished that there were answers to that now.]
no subject
He wanted to tell the other man that it would be all right, but would it? Things were so uncertain. It was not exactly depressing not to know, but it was rather...worrying all the same, when he let it be. But not stupidity of course.]
Nor are you stupid, or ignorant or whatever else we seem here. We have missed so much though. How does...
[Combeferre paused a moment, not sure how to go about saying the next part, but to come out with it.]
There are...reasons I have not been back to the medical lab as something other than a patient. So much to unlearn and then learn again...I do not... You know I never back down from challenges but some of those are simply...how... How does anyone...
I do not know that we CAN catch up. I fear we won't, and will forever be behind. I do not mean that I don't want to try but... I could spend my life in trying, so could you, and we would never at the same place...I do not like it, how ignorant we are here. As far as progress...
[Combeferre is scowling as he considers that.]
What we consider progress, what I still consider it is not so ... it is not hear as far along as anyone would imagine. I've found a statesman I admire, from a hundred and thirty years after our time. For him, progress would be the same as we had hoped for. Peace and considering the...he calls them the wonders of science. To think that so many years had passed, and we are left with the same major problems, while the superficial ones are solved easly, or we create more problems for ourselves, istead of looking to the issues...no, it is not progress. I don't know that it ever shall be. Or what it means for us and being here. There are the times that I feel...trapped.
Worse social ills, and violence... what did we fight for then, if this is what we are left with? I've asked the question to that myself, and I have no answers to it. God knows I wish I did.
It seems to me sometimes, in science, that so much of what we're looking at happened because it was easier for someone to see if they could do something without thinking of the results. Could. Not should, and not because it would be better. It's given us such a mess. I think that men are much the same, for all that they proclaim that they are better. What have humans done, Jehan, with all that has been given them? What has Paris done, that it has not come to what we knew must be there?
I think that we have been deceived. I truly do. Enjolras...I can hardly bring this up with him. He suggested, promised, that we died in the future's radiance, but if this is to be that radiance he promised...besides all of you being here...there is so little to make me want it. I should be ashamed for that too, but I cannot be. Not when it seems to have meant so little, when our work has meant so little.
How does one go on from that? Can we, in any way?
[Combeferre only wished that there were answers to that now.]