Cross-posted from Seven Shiny Stories

6. Community

Billy has the chance to study abroad in Australia for a year, and he's so mixed up about it, he can barely think straight. He can't decide if he wants to go, or why, or how he feels about the idea of missing it. Eventually, he decides this would be far easier if all the different nagging voices and clusters of desire were given names and allowed to talk to each other. He identifies the major relevant sub-agents as "Clingyness", which wants to stay in known surroundings; "Adventurer", which wants to seek new experiences and learn about the world; "Obedience to Advisor", which wants to do what Prof. So-and-So recommends; "Academic", who wants to do whatever will make Billy's résumé more impressive to future readers; and "Fear of Spiders", which would happily go nearly anywhere but the home of the Sydney funnelweb and is probably responsible for Billy's spooky dreams. When these voices have a chance to compete with each other, they expose questionable motivations: for instance, Academic determines that Prof. So-and-So only recommends staying at Billy's home institution because Billy is her research assistant, not because it would further Billy's intellectual growth, which reduces the comparative power of Obedience to Advisor. Adventurer renders Fear of Spiders irrelevant by pointing out that the black widow is native to the United States. Eventually, Academic and Adventurer, in coalition, beat out Clingyness (whom Billy is not strongly inclined to identify with), and Billy buys the ticket to Down Under.