Off-Topic Thread vol. 2

[Arrendis]

@Branka_Adovic

Okay, I see “Figure of speach” note wasn’t quite clear to you, I’ll clarify. By ‘pushups’ I meant body conditioning as a whole - full-body warmup before training, daily routine and so on. By ‘punching bags’, including breathing meatbags, I meant movement practice, if you think it doesn’t involve coordination or precision - your coach is likely not watching you. By ‘counting callories’ I meant planning nutrition in accordance to training routine.

Ok, so first… with the ‘just do pushups, punch bags, and count calories’ phrasing, it’s really hard to read all the rest of that into your figure of speech. The ‘just’ there makes it seem like you mean, y’know, just that. Cuz that’s what you’re telling me you mean.

@Branka_Adovic

Is it amateur boxers we’re talking about? Any competent boxing coach starts from footwork.

I mean, if I’m calling them dumb, you can already guess they’re not necessarily competent boxers, neh? Even in boxing, the ones who are truly competent, and surround themselves with competent support and coaching staff, tend to make it a full lifestyle element, not just a thing they half-ass.

@Branka_Adovic

To combat that, the intentionally exxagerated materialistic approach I described two paragraphs above relies on galnet motivation quotes, your coach messaging you ‘dude, it’s been a whole week, wtf?’ and your own conclusions after finding yourself in situations like ‘where dafuq did my abs go?’ and ‘why am I moving like a snail again?’.

Which will never yield lasting result. What you are describing is temporary at best, and thus, half-assing it.

The spiritual approach is just as rife with the potential to be a short-term, only-while-immersed scenario. In both secular and spiritual pursuit, if the approach isn’t subsumed fully, made an integral part of the individual, it will be temporary. And there is nothing about the spiritual approach that prevents this.

@Branka_Adovic

Pretty sure you got what I meant from the start, but you just had to have me write a wall of text, didn’t ya?)

A) No, I didn’t. Frankly, the whole ‘you know what I mean’ thing is obnoxious. I’m not freakin’ telepathic. I cannot read your mind. If you say something and I respond in a way that conveys a different reading, you should take that to mean you have communicated poorly. Because if I know what you mean, then either I will treat what you mean as what you mean, or I will go for a quick joke, because really, I’m a smartass, and that’s the easy option to amuse myself.

B) 2 paragraphs that total out to 155 words and 941 characters is not a wall of text. When I drop 10-20x that much in a single reply to you, then I will be starting to warm up to writing a wall of text. (Hell, the last bit of your reply there is longer. Do you really think you wrote a wall of text?)

[Arrendis]

@Morgana_Tsukiyo

When one talk the talk and walk the walk, some name it a path rather than an idea or philosophy, an integration of idea and practice.

Indeed.

[Arrendis]

@Branka_Adovic

See, that’s why I mentioned it in the first place, @Arrendis. To remind Else of this Achuran thing - they’ve got a bit of a death worship as keynote in their teachings.

I wouldn’t call that death worship, really. Only that Aria values her immediate duty more highly than her life. Else, on the other hand, is simply saying that the principle has as much duty to not spend the bodyguard’s life foolishly, but is not disagreeing that when all other options have been lost, then

@Elsebeth_Rhiannon

it’s honorable for them to be who dies, or in any case dies first,

[Branka_Adovic]

@Aria_Jenneth

Well, if you say it like that it doesn’t sound positive, does it?

It’s the emphasis on dying that I’m mocking on. Not that the concept of duty and placing duty before survival instinct is alien to me or my people.

@Aria_Jenneth

I do tend to weigh my life lightly

Aint we all, sweetie? Goo jokes aside, I wasn’t too attached to my mortal body either, even before becoming a capsuleer. Not only our spiritual tradition taught me that, but objective reality as well. Dad must have had a very troubled face when he was explaining his 5-year-old daughter that the same ceremonial dish we were having for dinner is somehow connected to the big pyres we were lighting for several days in a row.

@Arrendis

Ok, so first… with the ‘just do pushups, punch bags, and count calories’ phrasing, it’s really hard to read all the rest of that into your figure of speech. The ‘just’ there makes it seem like you mean, y’know, just that. Cuz that’s what you’re telling me you mean.

The ‘figure of speech’ note kind of related to the word ‘just’ as well. I just hoped that you’d extrapolate from those three examples to three respective categories of physical routine.

@Arrendis

I mean, if I’m calling them dumb, you can already guess they’re not necessarily competent boxers, neh? Even in boxing, the ones who are truly competent, and surround themselves with competent support and coaching staff, tend to make it a full lifestyle element, not just a thing they half-ass.

It’s the word ‘boxers’ that I disagreed on. If noone trains them, they’re not boxing, they literally just punch bags. There’s a scale between that, actually boxing properly even if only as a hobby and professional career with lifetime goals and such.

@Arrendis

Which will never yield lasting result. What you are describing is temporary at best, and thus, half-assing it.
The spiritual approach is just as rife with the potential to be a short-term, only-while-immersed scenario. In both secular and spiritual pursuit, if the approach isn’t subsumed fully, made an integral part of the individual, it will be temporary. And there is nothing about the spiritual approach that prevents this.

What I am describing, honey, is two intentionally polarized examples of how metaphysical different people might be about their physical exercises. As much as with how serious they are about it, there is scale between these two examples.
And please note, I never said that one of these approaches is by definition better than the other. As you indicated yourself, it’s about commitment. Whether they commit to sacred teachings of master Tzu or just train daily and memorize the quotes that get their eyes glowing - is not that relevant if they’re being consistent.

@Arrendis

Because if I know what you mean, then either I will treat what you mean as what you mean, or I will go for a quick joke, because really, I’m a smartass, and that’s the easy option to amuse myself.

So you did know)

[Arrendis]

@Branka_Adovic

What I am describing, honey

is a great way to get me to just ignore every damned word after that one?

[Ax_l_Thorne]

And I’m still lacking someone to wrestle with….

I’ll go see if I can get a bacon-wrapped Minmatar off the market someplace. Probably sold in the Federation as some specialty fetish to play with.

[Branka_Adovic]

Don’t pretend you did, sweetheart. The structure of your reply indicates that you’ve at least read a whole sentence)

[Aria_Jenneth]

@Branka_Adovic

It’s the emphasis on dying that I’m mocking on.

I’m … not really sure there is such an emphasis, though?

Religions in general tend to be a lot about death and dying and what supposedly happens after. We’re no exception in that of course, but the traditional understanding of an afterlife (at least for sects that teach that there is one) is just really kind of like … life. It’s not like you get to be specially honored forever if you just die gloriously or something. We’re not even as big on ancestor worship as the Caldari. We just recognize ourselves as parts of something larger and more important than we are.

If we were really all about “honorable death,” we could all have gone down gloriously fighting the Caldari a couple centuries ago, bows and spears against Great War-era armor and firearms. Really I think the people who were most into that were the old aristocrats, though, and the Caldari kind of enchanted them with shiny toys, uplifted and converted pretty much all of them.

What was left was mostly country folk and monks. “Glorious death,” not so much a core value, even if some of the old ways still can be a little inspirational when taking on a role that fits in with the culture of that time.

“Bodyguard” counts.

[Branka_Adovic]

I’d love to really. But there’s no less than two weight categories between you and me, by the looks of it. I suspect, even three. Maybe if I board a MTAC that would make us even.

[Branka_Adovic]

Well it just seemed to me that you were mentioning death and dying more than necessary

@Aria_Jenneth

You left out the “if necessary,” Elsebeth. Obviously you don’t want your bodyguards throwing their lives away, but it is a bodyguard’s role to step between the client and a blaster or an angry mob if it comes to that.

It’s a role I often perform for Directrix Phonaga, especially if the two of us are traveling alone, and yes, I would consider it my duty to die for her-- if need be.

Dying unnecessarily would naturally make it tricky to continue performing my duties, after.

See? You’re dying at least once a paragraph It’s the frequency of the word itself.

But I’m no specialist on Achuran philosophy after all. Just sharing a view from an outsider’s perspective

[Ax_l_Thorne]

Denied.

[Aria_Jenneth]

@Branka_Adovic

See? You’re dying at least once a paragraph It’s the frequency of the word itself.

But I’m no specialist on Achuran philosophy after all. Just sharing a view from an outsider’s perspective

Um. It might possibly have a little to do with my line of work??

(I mean the capsuleering end.)

[Veikitamo_Gesakaarin]

As a villain, my preferred security device is an anti-matter bomb with a dead-man switch. It makes it easier when the good guys break into my evil lair and they have to listen to what I have to say.

I damn well practiced my monologues so those DED murderhobos are going to damn well listen to them!

[Elsebeth_Rhiannon]

@Aria_Jenneth

That seems like a cultural difference, then, Elsebeth.

I expect your arrangement with the directrix is very different from that between Rhiannon and Sarinde, and different premises serve in each situation.

[Synthetic_Cultist]

When do you Usually engage in a Monologue ?

Is it Before, During, or After, you have Implemented your Schemes ?

[Veikitamo_Gesakaarin]

I think the best monologues are delivered in Act 3 of a Three Act Story.

Usually when the protagonists are ensnared by some devious ploy – like being trapped over a pit filled with bloodthirsty human-eating cyber Emus.

[Valerie_Valate]

I saw a holofilm a while back, where the villain only delivered her monologue explaining her scheme, after it was already underway and it was too late for the “heroes” to stop it. Was a right ripping yarn.

[Diana_Kim]

@Elsebeth_Rhiannon

Better than to bring weapons is to bring people with weapons.

That is so true!
Humans were forged to work together, in groups, this is our greatest strength, especially against individualist subhumans like Gallenteans. In a proper fight personal combat skills don’t matter as much as skills to act as a member of a group and execute orders swiftly and without questioning - better by understanding what your commander meant, which is achieved by long hours of training of the group together, participating in war games, and so on, when each other member of the group will gladly gives life for the friends and the commander.

A small combat group working in cohesion and with the best merited person among them as commander will easily defeat a large armed mob even if they have dozen times more people!

And, speaking about myself, usually I personally (executing a military objective as a commander is not a personally, I do have experience of commanding a squad in a groundside or in-space operation) don’t “bring people” (although it happened on a number of occasion, a small detachment of elite Caldari troops just by appearing can do quite a heavy influence on the upcoming negotiations), just because as someone who has training and experience of AWM I typically view myself as that weapon that others bring along (could be with my own squad though)

[Diana_Kim]

@Branka_Adovic

The general idea of Jin-Mei movements is “Live healthy for as long as possible”. And Achuran movements are all about “Die honorably as soon as possible”

Well, I have to admit I never though about it like that, and my Achura training is greatly surpassed by proper Caldari training, still…

I find it amusing now after reading that when we have actually met with Ms. Jenneth to solve the differences in person, we both have ended being cut up in a rather gruesome and bloody way. And quite fast.

[Veikitamo_Gesakaarin]

I have always found the best monologue is delivered after the damnation of the good guys due to their own choices and moral agency.

I always find it remarkable how easily a person can commit atrocity and inhumanity when one can appeal to their sense of moral righteousness. Whether done through appealing to political or ideological bias or just a good old sense of retributive justice (they deserved it, of course) people can do the worst to each other when they’re convinced they’re right.

Once, I used to worry a lot about being terrible to others, but then I realized being terrible to each other is about as human as it gets.