"All life is suffering." he continued.
"Everything that lives, lives on something that dies. This food is full of things that were once alive: wheat used in the noodle, the meat, the vegetables. Orthodox vegetarians make me laugh... they won't eat anything that has a face or a mother. They don't realize that the earth is a mother. Everything is born, and everything dies."
I knew he was being dark and deeply
philosophical because he was so despondent over his grandmother. but I thought. How lonely he must be. He lives and thinks on a level so above the world I'm in. It's as if he's skipped over more than just a normal childhood. He was more like a wise old man even though he was still a teenager. My problems with Phoebe couldn't begin to attract his attention, and vet I couldn't help wondering what such a genius as he could suggest.
"I have a problem at school." I began. "It's spreading like a disease. and I think it's infecting my mother as well."
He raised his eyebrows and sat back to listen.
"You've analyzed it correctly," he said after I concluded. You shouldn't have gone after her and fought the same way. When you do that, you can't win, because you've become your enemy."
"I've become my enemy?"
"Yes, you've become just like her, using her tactics, living in her world. Soon you'll have your little faction, and she'll have hers, and that will please her because it will confirm that the way she sees you and the rest of the world is correct."
"What do I do?"
"Nothing," he said. "This is someone who is devastated if she is ignored. She'll do whatever she can to get a rise out of you, and the more you resist, the more frustrated she will become, and eventually anyone with half a brain who watches all this will become disgusted with her and tell her to get a life, get over it.
"It was the secret and still is the secret behind the nonviolent movement. The oppressors don't know what to do if the oppressed refuse to acknowledge them but vet will not fight them the way they expect. They are prepared for a battle, and when they don't get it they are confused and frustrated. So will she be."
"I wish you were attending my school." I said. He smiled. "Sometimes I do. too."
"Can't you?"
"I'd only be bored in class, and my teachers would feel insecure and dislike me, It's happened too often."
"But there are other things beside studies. There are sports, activities, parties. Don't you miss any of that, Augustus?" He shrugged. "I don't think about it."
"Then you're practicing the nonviolence on yourself." I said. He smiled. "What do you mean?"
"You're avoiding the conflict, refusing to acknowledge feelings you have."
He looked at me a moment and nodded softly. "Maybe you're smarter than you think you are," he said.
"I wish I was smarter at math. I dread starting that homework." "Oh? Let me look at it," he said.
We went to my room, and I showed him the text and the chapter. He began to talk about it and explain it in a way that was so much simpler than our teacher had. After he worked on a few of the problems with me. I understood and did the remaining ones in half the time.
"You could be a teacher already," I told him.
"No. I wouldn't be a good teacher. Normally I don't have the patience. It's like a runner who has to trot because the others can't keep up. It's too frustrating for me. I don't mean to sound egotistical. It's just how it is."
"I understand." I said.
"I think you do," he replied, and then he surprised me by leaning forward to kiss me. "Don't be mad," he said immediately.
"I'm not mad. I'm just surprised," I said.
"I wanted to do that the first time I saw you. Is that boy who stutters your new boyfriend?"
"No," I said. "He's just a very nice boy."
"Do you have a lot of experience with boys?"
"No, not really."