How sad is it, that only my hurt and hate seem honest and real and True to you?
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Oh, your joys do, too. Your devotion to the Daphitis, your commitment to your continued growth, even your commitment to furthering your understanding of the Totalityā¦ those are all very real, very honest.
Your investment is real, even if the philosophy you invest in is, ultimately, an exercise in putting out your own eyes so the sun canāt blind you. And those things have their own beauty to them, too.
But the intensity of itā¦ to cut through all of that philosophy, all of your ever-present rhetorical equivocation and obfuscation, and do so so well that instead of clouding the matter in excessive complexity, you achieve clarity and eloquenceā¦ thatās a different scale entirely.
I wish it werenāt. I wish you could find that intensity and that clarity in all your pursuits.
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Coming from somebody from the otherside of this who does respect the Daphitis, Arrendis isnāt particularly wrong in this. While yes those you have become a retainer to are not necessarially evil or what have you, there are plenty who donāt share their sentiment on both sides. Simply scroll up for examples of what I mean. Maybe it should be pointed out that both sides have their own that should bask in the spotlight more so for what this thread is proposing. I dont see Arrendis as being particularrly hostile in this. Simply put you might be ignoring prime examples of where her beliefs are coming from.
Its hard to see the blade that strikes you down, even when you make eye contact with the opponent.
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No, sheās right: I was cruel, and pretty relentless, in some of our earlier, private conversations. For a while there, I was gettingā¦ Aria called it ādarkā, but it wasnātā¦ it was moreā¦ cold. Miz called me out on it, rubbed my face in it some, after I hit a particularly callous and uncaring low, and thatā¦
Iāve had to put a lot of effort and focus into pulling back from that. I spend a couple of months behind a desk, and even when I went back out, it was a few more before I was willing to fly anythingā¦ aggressive. Iām still not sure I should undock in anything but a logistics platform, butā¦ sometimes, you do whatās required of you, even if itās not whatās best for you.
So if her viewpoint is a littleā¦ taintedā¦ by the blood in her eyeā¦ itās ok. Sheās not wrong. Iām the one who made the cut itās dripping from.
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Just to pick up on one of your statements here. You say they ātaught us how to hate. And that gave us the tenacity and the strength to fight back.ā
True enough. However, in my view, as a people we need to move beyond hate. This is not to say we stop fighting but fighting when enraged causes one to loose focus and miss details that are important. Also it means you have trouble realising when you have won and itās time to stop.
So donāt fight with hate. Fight with love for all that you are seeking to protect. Capture rather than kill when you can because you donāt want the enemy to become too desperate and conclude that dying to the last is the only way possible.
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Iām glad youāre doing better, Arrendis.
About this, though:
No. Iām not going to take spoon-fed revenge, or even a duel. I have more pride than that. And while I understand that the gesture might be sincere, I donāt want your serially-mortal life if you offer it to me.
If I choose such a path, I will want that trophy to be a thing I earn.
My path is my own, and I donāt remember asking your advice for how to live. What I do with this feeling, is for me to decide. That will be true if I decide to avenge it, or to forgive.
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I know it will sound tautological, but she feels hate while hate is felt. Once hate is gone, itās not felt anymore until there is more hate.
Itās like the steering wheel of a car, ff the car is in movement it will move on itās own reflecting the terrain it passes trough and the peculiarities of the car, and if you want to point the car in a certain direction, you take the wheel and direct it.
At that moment, she was on a road of hate. Right now, who knows? She understands enough to know that this too, shall pass and she doesnāt appear to be willing to steer the wheel to stay in the hate road (unlike some people in this very topic that carry their past to this day, the suffering of the past is gone unless carried over, thereās plenty of todays suffering to be experienced).
When you are taught hate and you pass on the lesson, it is of your own will based on the perspective of a future based on a past that is gone.
When she expects to be tricked by a trickster, she is operating from future perspective based from a gone past.
In both cases the missing thing is the present.
She knows her hate will pass because for some things she is not willing to lock her wheel on that specific road. (And our interactions are mostly about the free flow of the wheel x driving the car towards certain roads)
But of course, all this is today. Who knows about the future. ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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That was well said.
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It almost seems as if youāre telling us to forget our hatred, which is something that we should never do. Hatred fuels our fight against the amarr, and keeps us wary of placating words and sly politics. But fighting blinded by hatred is a fools errand.
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About thatā¦ that was actually more gallows humor than a real offer, Aria. Iām not insane, you know. I donāt want to die.
And no, you havenāt asked for my advice. Consider it a gift. Itās like a Youil Festival fruitcake! You didnāt ask for it. You donāt particularly want it. But there it is! Goddammit!
And I donāt know that Iām ābetterā. Iām justā¦ not that. Iām not where I was then. Iām not where I was before, either, and I never will be again. āBetterā and āworseāā¦ theyāre not really relevant terms, are they?
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It depends. To me, the core question is suffering. Even as a figment, I can suffer. I can cause suffering to others. But I donāt want to suffer. I donāt want to cause others to suffer.
Are you suffering less than you were? Are you spreading it to others less?
Then that is better. Or, maybe, worse.
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Iām suffering more than I was. By design. Apathyāll do that, after allā¦ ease your suffering. If you donāt care what happens to people, then you wonāt hurt when lives get thrown away, or when you canāt save them.
As for spreading it to othersā¦ thatās sort of impossible to say, now isnāt it? I mean, in my line of work, my job is to keep people alive. Living people suffer. Worse, living people kill other people. But if they didnāt, then those people would kill other people.
So, on balance? Iām suffering more, and the human race is the human race. Is that āgoodā? Is that ābadā? Itāsā¦ painful? butā¦ closer to who I want to be than who I was. āBetterā still feels a bit hollow, though. Arrogant, too, since it puts my desires ahead of trillions of other folksā.
And goodness knows Iād never be arrogant!
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Well ā¦ with respect, Arrendis, the apathy youāre describing might be whatās commonly known as depression. And, it can be described as a really pretty exquisite form of suffering, because itās not merely not being forced to feel, itās not being able to feel even if you want to.
My predecessor described the āend stateā of her journey into the āBlackā as ādrifting away on a sea of abstraction.ā I gather thatās kind of the feeling, though maybe āsinkingā would be a better verb.
ā¦ and I sometimes wrestle with feelings (unfeelings?) like that, myself.
Anyway, the āhow much sufferingā conversation actually gets pretty complicated, and I can see us spending all day on it, so Iāll save it for another time and setting.
Either way, Iām glad youāre feeling ā¦ if not exactly better, then Iāll say, āat all.ā
Welcome back to this world of illusions, I guess, and mind the caltrops?
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Pain is real, Aria. The caltrops are your friends.
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Haha, sure.
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The thing is. To hate a foe is to place obstacles in the way of understanding a foe, which is the key to overcoming the foe. Or at least that is the way I see it. Forgetting wrongs done is not what I am suggesting here, merely not allowing the memory of them to lead us into further suffering & defeat.
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Had a few minutes to think about this part beyond pithy quips, which it really didnāt deserve (so it didnāt get any!)ā¦
Yeah, on reflection, I can see how what I described could be taken as depression, butā¦ it wasnāt. It wasnāt that I couldnāt feel, that I couldnāt careā¦ I just didnāt want to. It was maybe a bit of numbness and maybe a bit of āwhy bother?ā A kind of not-quite-conscious choice to say āYou know what? People die. No matter what, people will die. The universe doesnāt give a crap, why should I? Why should the end of their pain add to mine?ā
Thatās all it was, Aria, was callousness. It wasnāt that I couldnāt bring myself to care, even about the pain I was inflicting myself sometimesā¦ itās that I couldnāt be bothered to care. And that sense of āwhy is your suffering my problem?ā is still in there. Itās just not who I want to be, so itās not something I try to let out.
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Hm. Well ā¦ youāre right; thatās not depression.
It still seems a little familiar, though, even from my own experience. Something something arrogance of power/despair over oneās own culpability/exhaustion (by which I mean, itās worn out) of capacity to care? Iād need to think a lot to anatomize it and get its taxonomy down. Itās probably how even people who clearly arenāt psychopaths can end up being tyrants without really trying.
Itās also kind of the syndrome that makes me say stuff like, āWeāre not fit to rule.ā We kind of have the major qualities Iād associate with a military aristocracy without having been groomed for the role. Basically, natural tyrants.
Maybe Iām misdiagnosing, so, please donāt take this seriously if it doesnāt seem like it fits. It just ā¦ feels familiar, I guess.
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A personal tour of the Newelle gardens for post 1500 - provided both parties can come to terms.
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Do you have a hedge maze ?
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