There's something I just don't get. Well. Where immortality is concerned, there's a lot I don't get, but this one just boggles me.

We all start out--  Well. So far as I know, we all think we're human when we grow up. Which means you get the full spread of humanity with us: good, bad, lazy, hyper, every religion (and lack thereof) and race on the planet. But we grow up with people. Taken in by families, or institutions, or what have you, but we grow up thinking we're people. How in hell do we ever get to the point of thinking we're 'better' or something?

I know some mortals do it too. (Weird. 'People' doesn't have the distinction I need, or 'humans'. Hmm. Are we human? I suppose I'll consider that one day, too. Not now.) Hitler thought the Aryans were better than the Semitics. Duncan told me once that he met an immortal named Kronos who claimed to be the end of time. (Might have been bravado, but Duncan said he was preparing to wipe mortals off the planet if they didn't give him what he wanted.) Owain and Christopher sure as hell thought they were better than everyone else.  Was that because they were immortal? Or just their own arrogance?

How can we not think we're as human as anyone else? We eat, drink, defecate, urinate, bleed, need hugs, want sex or comfort, get bored or inspired or a little nutty.... We're human in every way I can think of that counts. We can go as mad as anyone else, or do as much good for as little reason. We think, and pray, and curse, and love.... What kind of idiot can think we're not human?

We live longer. I'm not sure we live better. Hmm. Some of us, maybe? Shamil, and Portia, and Aidan -- the ones who seize the day and live in the moment, maybe. I think maybe we learn to enjoy it more, if we pay attention. But 'better'? I don't think I know how to define that. I'm not sure any of us do. 

We're not smarter as a species. I mean, we're still killing each other for no readily apparent reason. We tend to be tall, and good looking, but that's not all of us, and we can't reproduce, so what's the damn point anyway? We live longer, but don't have any built-in instinct to guard or guide or be a good example. So... not brains.  Not looks. Not children. (Not everyone does students/family the way my line does, so that doesn't count, clearly.) No widespread gift for invention or anything other than survival... and we don't teach it to mortals or, half the time, each other, so that doesn't count.  There are more than enough mortal athletes who have us beat at speed, or strength, or agility, or endurance -- despite our best efforts in training to survive -- that it's not that, either. 

How in hell are we 'better' than humans, then?

Me, I don't think we are. And I don't think that pretending we are will lead me anywhere I want to go. It's arrogance. It's hubris.  And it's stupidity. 

One of the mysteries Aidan loaned me had a historian commenting that it's not just the facts themselves that are important, but the relationship of the facts and the proportions of the facts to each other as well. Everything has to be seen both as it is and in its proper setting before we can understand it.

Well, immortals are different from mortals in healing, but not necessarily in lifespan. We have no guarantee we'll live longer. Or better. Or more happily. What's more, we're outnumbered. By a vast majority. We have to live with and among these people. We're probably going to love some of them and hate others and disregard the vast majority, just as we do with other immortals, and just as mortals do in their lives. Any immortal who forgets that they came from mortals, and live among mortals, has forgotten his proper setting. 

And as my martial arts lessons keep teaching me: focus too much on your opponent's hand and she'll drop you with the other hand, or a foot. Or back you over a chair, or a tree stump, and you're still dead. Focus too much on what we are, and not where we are, and the universe will trip us up, too. Always assuming, of course, that the idiot in question doesn't make so much of a disturbance that someone like Connor or Matthew comes along and cleans them up before they bring the world down around the rest of our heads. Arrogance.  Hubris. Karma rolling down like a U-Haul full of books with the brakes out.

'Better than everyone else.' Sure, Owain. You're dead, too.