Introduction to Philosophy
It was perfect in Equestria. No more was there hunger. No more was there want for the essentials of life. No more did foals die long before their time, and the price of hats was at an all-time low. Light shone down onto this perfect Equestria, unencumbered by any rogue clouds that wandered through the sky, only to finally be absorbed by the still tightly-closed curtains of Nihil’s bedroom. It was quite the feat, but on this perfect day, in this perfect, beautiful world, Nihil still managed to find something to bitch about.
The comforter was his last line of defense against the few celestial rays that dared to peek through his curtains. Sunlight made for crappy sulking, and crappy sulking made for a brighter view of the world. No, Nihil thought his ponderings too pressing to be forgotten about in exchange for happiness. By some twisted stream of consciousness, he concluded that in a world without need, he was unneeded.
Before he could wade deep enough into his sorrows to finally drown himself, he heard the door open. He could already feel her dirty, lighthearted giddiness pollute his well-earned, brooding atmosphere.
“Hey bro! C’mon, it’s time to go eat!” Exi chirped as she threw open the curtains and purged the room of its dark edginess.
“I’ve kinda had a rough night, Exi,” Nihil sighed as he slumped backwards onto his bed. Exi looked at her brother sympathetically.
“Was it Hedon?”
“Yes it was Hedon!” Nihil snapped. The dormitory Nihil lived in had pretty thin walls. Though neighbors in this building were few and far-between, the one room next to Nihil’s was occupied by a rather nymphomaniacal mare with a chronic habit of self-gratification. “Celestia’s flaming teets, that mare goes on for bucking hours!” Nihil exasperated.
“Well, there’s coffee in the cafeteria, so that ought’a be a good pick-me-up,” Exi said with an encouraging smile. “Now c’mon, you gotta get some breakfast in you, we got plans for today!”
“I certainly do not have plans.”
“Nihil, you’ll never get a cutie mark if you don’t go out and do things,” Exi pleaded.
“Well, I’ve never gotten a cutie mark while doing things, so it wouldn’t be too much of a deviation.”
“C’mon, Nihil. I promise you I have found the perfect thing today.”
Nihil sighed in defeat. “Alright, alright.” Nihil stretched his stiff limbs as his sister squealed happily and ran out the door to make whatever preparations that she needed. Nihil proceeded to slug drearily through his morning routine. He took the time to stop and look in the mirror to make sure his outside appeared as shitty as he felt. What good was grouchiness if he couldn’t flaunt it to others? Satisfied with his mane’s unkemptness, he proceeded to make his way to the cafeteria.
As he entered the white-washed, incandescently lit room, Nihil could smell eggs cooked automatically to objective perfection. He made his way to the buffet and grabbed a bit of everything, which had been cooked with love on a conveyer belt to the proper regulatory FDA guidelines. After he took a seat at a table shoved off in the corner, he began to grumpily eat his six-thousand seven hundred and fifty-first consecutive perfect breakfast.
Not even halfway into his meal, a mare burst through the doors and made a beeline for the food. She snatched up a plate and loaded it to the point of breaking. She slapped her plate down next to Nihil and slid into the seat beside him.
“How ya doin’ Nihily?” asked Hedon in greeting.
“Things could always be better,” Nihil deadpanned. “That’s quite a bit of food you got there. Busy night last night?”
“You know it!”
“Yes, and I strongly wish I didn’t. What’re you up to now? Two forelegs?”
“Oh, hardy har. A mare’s gotta do what she has to to keep herself happy. Sorry I’m not on board with your little pursuit of crappiness, but if you really hate it so much, why don’tcha just move rooms?”
“I sent in the paperwork four weeks ago, so if I’m lucky, I might just have the denial of my request sent back by the time the semester ends.”
“Huh? You’d think they could be more on top of things with only four students in the entire damn place.”
“If there’s a whiff of tedium to it, the only way it’ll get done is if a robot does it,” Nihil said.
Hedon chuckled. “That’s what we need: a robo-dean.”
“Might as well go that extra step,” Nihil affirmed as the cafeteria door opened again, allowing Exi to enter. After she made her way through the buffet she joined the only two other ponies in the expansive cafeteria.
“Hiya guys,” Exi called out.
“Is Solips coming?” Nihil asked.
“I dunno. I heard him mutter something about nanobots in the food and then he stormed off,” Exi answered.
“Probably off to the Med building to get his pelvis repaired,” Hedon remarked.
“Really, Hedon?” Nihil sighed.
“Hey, he might be crazy, but where it counts, he’s crazy.”
“Whelp,” Nihil started as he picked up his plate, “My appetite is gone.” Nihil got up to leave when Exi also stood up.
“Oh! Wait up!” Exi said before she scarfed down the remainder of her breakfast, “We’re gonna go play table tennis!” After Nihil only sighed in reply. She continued, “C’mon, bro. We gotta find something you enjoy.”
“I enjoy sleeping.”
“I don’t know what a cutie mark in being bedridden would look like, and I’m not gonna find out today,” Exi said while she grabbed Nihil by the ear and dragged him to the recreational building. This building was chock full of things that would’ve had monumental use if the college had an enrollment in the double digits. There were treadmills, ping pong and pool tables, basketball hoops, and horseshoe spikes all thrown about in a mess across the entire interior of the building. Luckily, this building saw very little use nowadays, so some of the obvious design flaws that could have ended with ponies taking a horseshoe to the head never saw fruition.
“Alrighty!” Exi began, as she led Nihil to a table that she had prepped with the two paddles and a ball. “Here we are!”
“Look, if actual, full-sized tennis didn’t do it for me, why would a scaled-down version fare any better?” Nihil reasoned.
“Well, I figured it’d be easier to pick up,” she explained on her fourth attempt to grab her paddle with her mouth. She stared blankly at the ball she was somehow meant to throw upwards before she hit it with her paddle. Nihil sighed and picked up his own paddle waiting for the serve. Exi tried to figure out just how to get that ball into the air, a job that’d be so much easier if she just had one of those ivory protrusions jutting out of her forehead. She stood precariously on her hind legs as she planted her forelegs on the table, and grasped the ball between her hooves. She sent her forelegs upwards, tossing the ball into the air in an absolutely beautiful arc. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make any use of it before the momentum of her throw sent her careening backwards, giving her a harsh landing onto her flank. The ball bounced next to her with a steady, taunting click.
Nihil set his paddle down to speak. “Why don’t we just give up on-”
“Ah god id,” Exi said with a mouthful of paddle. She grabbed the ball between her hooves, ready to try again. She threw the ball up again and managed to maintain her balance. With great force, she flicked her neck and swung the paddle—about a foot to the right of the ball.
“We really don’t have to-”
“Ah taid ah god id!” Exi grunted. She put down the paddle to pick up the ball with her mouth. She bounced it on the table before she quickly picked up the paddle and swinging wildly, missing every time.
“Exi this is getting-”
“I GOD ID!” Exi screamed. She again put down the paddle, and bounced the ball with her mouth. She quickly picked up the paddle and swung with all the strength she had. And finally, she made contact—with the table. Exi cried loudly in pain, and Nihil rushed to his sister’s aid.
“Exi! Are you okay? Open your mouth. Let me see the damage!” Nihil ordered. She complied as she opened wide and revealed a very chipped incisor amidst a sea of red. “C’mon Exi, I’ll walk you to the Med building.”
Little was said on the short walk to the Med building. Though Exi did manage a mumbled, “I shoulda known it was a bonehead sport,” between sobs and sniffles. Nihil was immensely taken aback by her sudden use of racial epithets.
“Whoa there, Exi!” he exclaimed.
“I’m bucking injured Nihil! I get to say it!”
Though Nihil heartily disagreed, he felt it wise to keep his mouth his shut. And thus, he lived to bitch another day.
~~~
After he dropped his sister off to get her medical attention, Nihil figured if he went back to his room now, he could just reach his sulking quota for the day. On his way back, Nihil made note of the library. He hadn’t seen any janitorial bots floating about in there as of late. It must have gotten so little use that the bots calculated it inefficient to continue to clean it. That gripped at Nihil’s heart a bit. He thought of all the tomes of knowledge being preserved in their tightly leather bound—Nihil shook the winking image of Hedon out of his head and continued his way to his room.
Nihil entered his room and made sure to lock the door behind him. He plopped himself down on the bed and completely engulfed himself in his comforter. Now that he had properly placed himself down in the dumps, he could let his idle mind wander to the dark places that kept him there. He thought of the white expanse at his hip where his cutie mark should be. He knew that it was very common for adult stallions like him to still be lacking one, but most adults didn’t have Exi forcing them to try new things every other day. Being stuck in a rut would actually have made for a rather nice change of pace.
He wondered if the universe, in one big “buck you” to him, had actually given him a cutie mark and it was just nothing. Would he know? Would there have been that pomp and circumstance he had heard about, only for him to turn around and see a light blue flank staring back at him?
He let himself believe for a second that he would get a cutie mark soon. That it would solve all his little existential crises. Upon further thought, however, he realized that even when he found his cutie mark, his life still wouldn’t necessarily have purpose. Having an image of spilt milk or whatever on his ass wasn’t going to make him important in his society. It wouldn’t change the fact that once he eventually died, the world would have no change to mark his existence. He always somehow felt like he was destined for greatness, but there was no evil. There was no vileness to the world to improve. Hell, even EthOS, whose primary directive was simply to improve Equestria, was obviously running out of ideas.
Feeling sufficiently like a sack of shit, Nihil finally decided he had suffered in silence enough. He turned the radio on. The sounds of squealing guitars, guttural screaming, and the occasional reminder from EthOS not to rut the janitorial bots slowly lulled him off to sleep.
~~~
Nihil was awakened by a scratching at his door, which was quite impressive because the pony doing the scratching was screaming loudly.
“THE TRAINS! THEY’RE USING THE TRAINS!” Solips yelped from behind Nihil’s still closed door. Nihil’s hopes that ignoring him would cause him to leave were soon dashed by the door swinging open, as it traitorously gave the paranoid pony entry. “DON’T GO ON THE TRAIN, NIHIL!”
“Well, I had no plans to travel anyway, so please forgive me if your dire warning is received with a bit of ire.”
“Nihil EthOS is trying to control us!” Solips said as Nihil groaned and prepared for his lecture in lunacy. “The smokestacks, Nihil! The smokestacks!”
Nihil sighed. “What about the smokestacks?”
“They’re vapor trails EthOS is using to control our minds!”
“And why do you think th-”
“Think about it! What do they need an engine for? The damn trains are pulled by ponies, Nihil. THEY’RE PULLED BY PONIES!”
“Did you really sleep with Hedon, Solips?” Nihil asked in the hopes to move to a more rational topic.
He found it was a rather difficult thing to do when Solips replied, “Of course! I had to see just how authentic the android really is.”
“The…android…”
“Yes, Nihil! The android! Don’t you hear her recalibrating her piston every single night! Like clockwork!”
“Y’know, if I get to pretend the sound I keep hearing is recalibrating pistons, I might just be on board with this one.”
“Pretend?! Nihil I thought you a free thinker!” Solips shouted forcefully.
“I’m a rational thin-”
“NO! You’re just an ignorant sheep like the rest of them!”
“I don’t like you using ‘sheep’ as an insult. I happen to know some really-”
“You know NOTHING! You know nothing of this false reality!” Solips accused.
“Look, if I’ve ever offended you in any way, you know you can always GET THE BUCK OUTTA MY ROOM!”
“Actually, I need your help.”
“Of course you do,” Nihil said, rubbing his temples.
“You gotta make sure you come to physics today,” Solips said without a trace of irony in his voice.
“Why? I never actually learn anything in there.”
“No, Nihil. You learn everything in there,” Solips said cryptically.
“What?”
“Professor Burstbeaker talks in code, Nihil!”
“I’m pretty sure his ramblings on his attempts to set things on fire are just ramblings.”
“That’s the genius of it! It might seem to be ramblings, but look at this,” Solips said while pulling out a slip of paper from his wing, “This was his code last lecture.” Nihil looked at the slip of paper covered in complex matrices full of letters, all leading up to a phrase scratched at the bottom of the sheet.
“Does Bruno Mars is gay,” Nihil read aloud before commenting, “Damn, you really worked hard to pull this outta your ass.” Solips snatched his paper back, placing it soundly back in his wing.
“If you don’t show it’ll only be me there, and Professor Burstbeaker might catch on to my catching on. I need somepony else there so I’m not as conspicuous.”
“Having more ponies isn’t going to help you in that regard,” Nihil stated. After a few seconds of blank staring from Solpis, Nihil conceded. “If I do this will the crazy pony keep his lock picks outta my door?”
“Yeah sure, whatever,” Solips agreed.
“Alright, I’ll go.”
“Yes!” Solips declared with a wide smile, “And we’ve still got ten minutes to get there!”
~~~
What was usually a three-minute walk took Solips the entire ten minutes of their allotted time. Nihil had walked casually by while Solips ducked and rolled from cover to cover, occasionally giving Nihil an ‘all-clear’ signal, which was promptly ignored. Nihil spent most of the walks waiting for janitorial bots to pass out of sight before Solips would jump to his next position. After he had grown tired of the shtick, Nihil figured he’d just hurry to the classroom and wait for Solips to show up. Uncannily, Solips slipped in just before Professor Burstbeaker busted through the door.
“Dudes, I’m sorry,” the professor began as he plopped down a notably intact fire extinguisher onto his desk, “I pumped like a thousand watts into this fire extinguisher and I just couldn’t get it to light on fire. Can you believe the audacity of this thing? Kicked all them bucking watts into it and it didn’t even explode a little bit.” Nihil noticed the insane rate at which Solips was marking down words on his paper. There was clearly a lot more substance to his writing than what was being spoken.
Nihil raised his hoof. “Excuse me Professor, but what is a watt?” Nihil asked in a dire hope that maybe he could exit this classroom with more knowledge than what he’d walked in with.
“Buck if I know,” Professor Burstbeaker replied. Upon seeing Nihil’s very unsatisfied look, he continued, “Ugh, just ask EthOS or somethin’, dude.” The professor was about to continue his rant about how he couldn’t get a fire extinguisher to ironically catch fire when his assistant, Candyflask, shot in with a look of urgency.
“Yo, Prof!” Candyflask said. “Y’know how we were doin’ shit with the fire extinguisher? Well I put the whole bucking thing in a fire and it bucking exploded bigger’n I’ve ever seen! It took the med bots like an hour to put my face back together!”
“Totally?!” the professor asked.
“Totally,” Candyflask confirmed.
The two of them ran quickly out of the classroom, Professor Burstbeaker yelling, “There’s more on the second floor!” as they made their way down the hallway. Nihil assumed class was dismissed.
~~~
Nihil was pissed. He realized that if he wanted to learn anything about physics, he would have to take initiative. He saw the library not too far off in the distance and assumed that it would probably have a book on just that subject. Upon entry, he was immediately drawn to the most ostentatious reason that the library had suffered heavy disuse. The books were arranged by color. “At least they had the decency to separate the fiction and nonfiction,” Nihil muttered to himself as he began what would probably be a long search.
After he looked over a few lightly dusty shelves, he finally found what he sought after. “A Comprehensive Reference of References by Leeroy Jenkins, no… Masochism and You by Rosy Tailend, no…Aha! Physical Abuse: Torturing Yourself to Learn Physics. This must be it.” He giddily grabbed the book and went to take it back to his room. He made a small effort to check the book out before he realized there was nopony there to give a damn.
Finally in his room with his newfound knowledge in his hooves, he opened the book up to the disclaimer, the only page that had seemed to suffer any kind of yellowing.
Disclaimer:
Please note that at this point in time robots do all the inventing and calculating with none of the mistakes, a few thousand times the precision, and a few million times the speed than you could ever hope to achieve. There is no point to torturing yourself with this other than for the novelty of it.
After reading the short warning, Nihil did something rather unknown to this book: he turned the page anyway.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this book. I know you have many options, and I dutifully respect your poor decision-making skills. Before we begin, I must ask you to please read the disclaimer.
At this point the only ponies still reading should be the book's main demographic: those too stupid to heed a warning, and those who unfoundedly believe they can make a difference.
Nihil spent no time wondering the category into which he fell.
The first thing one must know about physics is force. Now, when I say force, I don’t mean that as in ‘My father forced me to eat his cigarette ash as a foal.’ No, when I say force, I simply mean a push or a pull. Like how my father pushed my head into his ash tray before making me eat the ashes…
Nihil continued to read, the learning made a great distraction from his usual existential dread. He read and read until he realized his afternoon had fizzled away, and all without even the slightest bit of feeling sorry for himself. It would be time for dinner soon, and he knew if he skipped it to continue to read, Exi would assume he’d attempted to drown himself in his tears. So, Nihil shoved his book into his saddlebag and made his way to the cafeteria.
~~~
Nihil found that to eat and to read at the same time was quite a challenge. Though he managed to prop the book up with one hoof, he had to eat his hayburger with a fork, a task that brought its own challenges. Though he couldn’t turn the pages with his mouth like he was used to, he managed to nudge the pages with his snout, and soiled the previously pristine pages with only the minimal amount of grease.
He had gotten to the word problems and was trying to work them out in his head.
If a security bot pulled my 60-kilogram father out the door with a force of 100 newtons, what would be his acceleration as he left my family forever?
After a bit of thought, Nihil calculated the acceleration to be one and two-thirds meters per second squared. He checked to see if he was right.
*Answers on page 469
Nihil assumed he was right.
As he turned the page to continue to his next chapter, he heard the cafeteria door open. He looked and saw Exi all fixed up and absolutely ecstatic to see Nihil both eating, and doing something that was decidedly not moping. “Whatcha reading, Nihil?” Exi asked as she skipped up to him.
“A physics book,” he answered, as he waved a dismissive hoof at her.
“Really? But isn’t there a physics class here on campus?”
“If one could call it that. More of a fire class than anything,” Nihil said before he turned his head to see Hedon enter. “I figured it’d be best just to do it by hoof.”
“Oooooo, did ya get Nihil talking about his sex life?” Hedon jabbed as she made her way to the buffet.
Nihil pointedly ignored her as he shoved his face back into his book. “Maybe reading is your special talent!” Exi proclaimed.
“I don’t think my special talent would be something pretty much everypony can do,” Nihil returned.
“I can’t,” Hedon deadpanned while she sat her plate down beside the two, and noted their mildly shocked looks. “I have always had a more hooves-on approach to learning.”
“Judging by the sounds every night, you don’t have a hooves-off approach,” Nihil muttered just loud enough to ensure Hedon could hear it.
“How do you take classes here without reading?” Exi asked politely.
“I don’t,” she replied with a mouthful of hayburger.
“You don’t? Why in hell are you at a university then?” Nihil asked.
“Nerdy stallions are easy,” she answered casually.
After an awkward lapse in conversation, Exi eagerly tried to start everypony talking again. “So, do you think you’ll get your cutie mark in this physics stuff?”
“Cutie mark? Are you still on about that?” Hedon asked Nihil. Nihil nodded behind his book. “Those damn things are so overrated,” she said as she motioned to the white grapes adorned on her flank, “I don’t even like grapes.”
“Well, what about wine? Do you like that?” Exi asked helpfully.
“I like anything that could get me hammered. Especially stallions,” she said winking at Nihil. Nihil gave her an irritated glance.
“Oooooo, maybe that’s your special talent, Nihil!” Exi exclaimed unironically.
“Nope. Not dealing with this,” Nihil stated, as he packed up his book. He did not even bother to put his tray away as he exited the cafeteria in a huff.
As Nihil walked back to the dorms, he heard a rather loud explosion in the direction of the Physics building. He silently hoped the professors were again left in a state salvageable by the med bots and continued his trot. He heard the sounds of heavy hooffalls and turned to see Solips as he ran for his life.
“THE MEGASPELLS HAVE FALLEN!” he bellowed out, “WE’RE ALL DEAD!” As Solips ran into the distance, his voice became more nonsensical, until he disappeared around a corner. After a few more minutes with a distinct lack of being dead and an absence of additional explosions, Nihil made his way to the dormitory. Before entering, he looked at the setting sun. As it appeared to get dimmer nearing the horizon, Nihil could make out the outline of a pony sitting distinctly on its surface, something that always brought him a little bit of serenity in his evening depression sessions. Nihil closed the door behind him, and went directly to his room.
Nihil read his book for a few more hours before he turned in rather early, with a hope that he could fall asleep before Hedon started to rock the walls. Luckily, sleep found him rather easily that night, and his sulking quota had never been more unfulfilled.
Author's Note
Oh look, properly edited and properly indented thanks to Dreams of Ponies banging my head into the keyboard until I was slightly less dumb.
Also a big thank you to Lightning._.Flash from the Equestria amino for being there to bounce ideas off of and for making a few suggestions.
