"Alexei Panshin - Farewell to Yesterdays Tomorrows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Panshin Alexei)

A record of change.

This book is the last by Alexei Panshin. Whatever books follow this will be collaborations between
Alexei and Cory Panshin—as were several of the later pieces in this book, such as the story “Sky Blue”
and “Lady Sunshine” and the article that concludes this book and lends it its title.

—ALEXEI PANSHIN

Elephant, Pennsylvania

What’s Your Excuse?

Wooley’s beard and manner were all that you would expect of any psychology instructor, particularly
one who enjoys his work. He leaned back in his swivel chair, his feet on his desk, hands folded behind
his neck, and looked at the graduate student who had been sharing his partition-board office for the past
two weeks.

“I’m curious about you, Holland,” he said. “By my conservative estimate, ninety-five percent of degree
candidates in psychology are twitches. What’s your problem?”

The room was only about eight feet wide. Holland’s desk faced the back of the cubicle, Wooley’s faced
the door, and there was a narrow aisle between the two. Holland was a teaching assistant and was busy
correcting a stack of papers. He looked warily up at Wooley, who had a certain reputation, and then
returned his attention to his work.

“No,” Wooley said expansively. “On the face of it, I would have said that you had a very low twitch
rating.”

Wooley’s reputation was half for being a thoroughgoing son of a bitch, half for being fascinating in the
classroom. He had a flamboyant, student-attracting personality that was great fun for those he didn’t pick
for victims.

Holland finished marking the paper and tossed it on the stack he had completed. Then he said, “What is
a twitch rating?”

“Don’t you know that neuroses and psychoses are old hat? They need a scientific replacement, and for
that purpose I have devised the twitch rating. Radiation is measured in curies, noise is measured in
decibels—now psychological problems are measured in twitches. I’d rate you about five. That’s very
low, particularly for a psych student.”

Holland flipped his red pencil to the side and leaned back. “You mean you really think that psych
students are more . . . disturbed . . . than . . . ”

“They’re twitches,” Wooley corrected. “That’s why they’re psychology students. They’re not twitchy
because they’re psych students. What they want is to learn excuses for the way they act. They don’t
want to change it or even, I think, understand it. They want to excuse it—you know, ‘Mama was a
boozer, Daddy was a flit, so how can I possibly help myself?’ They learn all the reasons that there are for
being twitchy and that makes them happy.”

Holland cleared his throat and leaned forward to recover his pencil. Holland was a very serious fellow