"I don't know if they really do. I think they - at least like to tell themselves - that slaves do better with guidance or are being justly punished for bad behavior or that other countries just put everyone to the sword when they take a city or that they'll free them eventually -"

"Well, if telling yourself you'll free them eventually helps..."

"Lots of things help if you're good at lying to yourself."

"And you aren't and don't think you'll get that way?"

"Yes."

Nod.

"I'm not going to burn out or anything but I definitely underestimated how unpleasant it would be to be surrounded by people who'd be right to hate me, all the time, and to know exactly how I was hurting them."

"I'm fine on an hour to hour basis."

"Depending what my reading thing does and as long as I don't ask about the drawings."

"The reading thing would bother me anyway. It's not embroidered, right, you have to literally look at people and -"

"It's not embroidered, it's just noticing things the way some people notice all kinds of details in music or in plant behavior or something."

"Plants have behavior?"

"I know a plant enthusiast who very much interprets plant, uh, leafiness or droopiness or splotchy coloration and makes inferences about the soil quality and things."

"...huh. It's probably all right, just - adjacent to - some things that wouldn't be."

"If you would prefer that I avoid it I will."

"I'm not convinced you can, you seem to do it automatically."

"I mean, it will involve spending lots less time around you and not asking questions unless the thing I want from the question is wholly a piece of information I'd be as happy to get in a letter, but I think I can do it."

"I have been deriving enjoyment from my job."

"Well. I can at least try."

"It's probably fine."

Sigh.

"I mean, you could also just explain what you're getting past 'a fair bit'."

"It varies enough to be a little hard to fully characterize without knowing which details are important - most consistently I get how strongly someone feels about something, how complicatedly, how persistent their feelings about the situation are - whether something is always upsetting or uniquely so - whether someone believes what they're saying or whether they're torn about it or whether they're lying -"

"...none of that is a problem on the level that I had been concerned about although some of it would be awfully instrumentally inconvenient if I needed to be sneaky for some reason."

"I am very inconvenient to be sneaky around, yeah."