"...I mostly didn't."

"Can you try to give a summary? It's all right if it sounds stupid, but it's much easier for Sarham to explain what he's thinking if he has a sense of what parts of it you're understanding and not understanding."

"It is easier for him to explain when other people do weird things because he is not one of them and cannot control what they do and make it less weird."

"That's actually pretty close to what I got. Sarham, is that right?"

"Well, it sounds weird when you say it like that, but, I guess."

"What's weird about it? --If you think this isn't productive, just let me know, we can also try drilling down on one of the other issues."

"It's weird because - I don't have, like, perfect volitional control over all my feelings at all times, so, if I'm worried about a future possible problem, I can't necessarily solve that by just deciding not to have it. I think Kyeo also probably can't do that, at least not forever. This is a pretty normal human trait as I understand it, and Kyeo's satisfied with the explanation 'those people do that thing and we can't stop them' but not with the explanation 'I am a fallible being and might one day have a feeling I don't currently want to have'."

"And Kyeo... comes from a culture where people are more expected to just not have problems by deciding not to have them?"

"Yep!"

"Kyeo, can you talk me through how that has worked for you in the past?"

"I was not always very good at it."

"What kind of problems did you encounter?"

"Well. I was a jujube."

"I don't know if the translation thing covers that, he means he's gay."

"...I sense this is getting into very emotional territory."

"They have some incredibly sickening conversion therapy on his planet."

"Also it turns out it does not work."

"...Mine too."

"I'm sorry."

"I may want to go back to that at some point but we don't have to talk about it now. --Kyeo, can you walk me through a time it did work?"

"A time when deciding not to have a problem worked? Uh - I became used to short showers of unpleasant temperatures when the plumbing was broken and it was fine. At the time. I can no longer take a cold shower without a panic attack."

"Many people find it easy to get used to negative physical sensations," Chris agrees. "Sarham, do you also find that?"

"Not especially."

"I can still take extremely hot showers without a problem. That came up often in the summer on Ibyabek, it's a hot planet."