Ah yes, I know that monologue. That’s the “We are not so different, you and I” speech, where you directly attack the moral basis for their actions. Usually causing them to experience crippling self doubt and going into a depressive spiral, at least temporarily.
Can be quite the shock, realising you’re the other side of the same coin.
What about the “Fools! I shall destroy You!” speech ? Ever done that one ? I’m sorely tempted to every time I have to attend a meeting at the University.
Actually quite recently I was just about to go into a, “You fools!” monologue when my floor manager informed they were not going to release the mutaplasmid mustelids I had planned due to occupational health and safety violations.
I really hate unionized evil minions.
You had my attention until this point.
I think you should.
What are they going to do, revoke your tenure?
Okay, hang on, pilot. Looking back a bit:
I was willing to take you at your word on this, but:
So. Um. Wait. What???
So, even if this were true somewhere, first off do you have any idea how many monastic sects we have? “The thousand sects” is probably a significant undercount, and they practice every spiritual outlook from animism to polytheism to monism and back again, often under the same roof, and they pretty much ALL have their own styles inspired by their own specific teachings.
I’m a Shuijing (literally, “a crystal of sufficient size and clarity to be suitable for use in jewelry”) practitioner; our focus is on clarity. We do indeed have a tradition of martial practice; its focus is on (as Ms. Tsukiyo was discussing) breaking down the illusion of self, and the conceptual barrier between self and other, practitioner and weapon. “No-mind,” being able to move and act without thought or intention, is key to the practice.
Sure we use weapons, and some of those it would be pretty easy to kill someone with or be killed by, but it’s not about death at all. Our tournaments don’t normally get followed by like a parade of funerals or something.
It’s about perception, insight into the truth of things.
“Honor” isn’t even really a part of it; that’s a concept of the secular world, a quality of properly performing a role in that world. It’s a kind of social credit, like a currency you get from doing a thing right. It’s of course important, but, again, it’s about how society sees a thing. Mine is important to me, but in some way that’s a measure of how entangled in this world I’ve become.
Even so, I know very well it’s an illusion.
Gym philosophy is best philosophy. And 100% true and accurate every time.
Some want to become strong, and in order to do so, join the gym.
Others join the gym, and by doing so, become strong.
Some want to be able to defend themselves / kill others, and in order to do so, they practice martial arts.
Others practice martial arts, and by doing so, are able to defend themselves / kill others.
Even if the end result appears similar, they are quite different things.
Is being a capsuleer a martial art?
I mean, I maintain a high degree of physical fitness to interface with the pod and most of what I’ve done in the pod has been martial in nature.
No, its being a bodybuilder.
Why lift weights when I can use a tractor beam?
I… to the Winds, I’ve been doing it wrong all these years!
I guess, I wasn’t quite right to generalise what I and that dude have seen in local training groups to the wholesome of different teachings. But the way you formalated your thoughts kind of reminded me of their ways.
Only if you sepate words ‘martial’ and ‘art’ by sense. But ‘martial art’ as an expession usually means training your body to interface with other bodies in a martial way. As well as training your brain to interface with your body…
Waitaminnite
I’ve just had a revelation. Our body is in a sense a capsule. Powered by Spirit and cotrolled by mind.
Which means…
Living a life is being a capsuleer. And training in martial arts is becoming aware of that
Then I would get martial: related to war or a warrior; and art: an occupation requiring skill or knowledge.
Given that, I would see being a capsuleer as a ‘martial art’ – an occupation requiring the skill or knowledge of war or a warrior.
Actually I gather a lot of Achura are first drawn to the capsule by the philosophical implications.
See, what the monks spend years or decades learning to do with weapons, that erasure of the border between arm and weapon, user and tool, self and other? A pilot does that routinely, every time we jack in through the neural link. One moment you’re a scrawny little organism half-smothered in ectoplasm, the next you’re an armored war machine the size of a town.
Thing is, I don’t think it really … works, all that well. I mean, how many practitioners do you really see in the pod?
Sure, we get the short road to a perceptual sleight-of-hand that normally takes years of practice to pull off, but do we actually, you know, learn anything from it? Does it make us wise? Or do we in practice just kind of go, “Oh, cool!” and proceed to carve a bloody swath across the stars like everyone else?
(Maybe the really wise ones just have a short, productive career hauling planetary vehicles or something and retire, so we never really see them.)
Ah! Hee. Well, that’s fair: I do draw some inspiration from certain old paths, and the path of the sword is in a very real sense alive and well in the overarching State culture.
Actually there was even a time when I sort of conceptualized myself as a sort of wandering warrior monk, even maybe a sword-saint. But then I noticed something that’s kind of … latent, in that mythology?
A proper sword-saint is a murderous asshole who treats human lives, at best, as steps on a stair; at worst, as cobwebs to be brushed aside.
And, even if sometimes I might have kind of wanted to be, I’m … not. It’s a bloody business we’re in, but the deaths don’t make me stronger or bring me joy. They even kind of eat holes in me. I’m a fighter, sure-- a killer, many times. But I’m not the kind of pitiless, blazing soul who can survive a path defined by slaughter.
I dwell on the damage maybe more than I should. But partly it’s to make sure I remember it’s there. And that it’s supposed to hurt.
I don’t think a change in perception is always going to be commensurate with a gaining of wisdom. A change in perspective might be important in providing a novel insight, but wisdom I think requires a degree of reflection and awareness of those perspectives.
Although in regards to violence I don’t think I’ve ever seen wisdom as the goal as much as honesty with myself.
I’m not so much looking for an always as even evidence of an “ever,” Veik. I mean, Achura often seem drawn to the pod in hopes that the experience will deepen our understanding, but it’s not clear to me that it’s even helpful in obtaining the kind of insight we want from it.
I don’t think there is insight to be gained from being a capsuleer. To me it’s just the regular cruelty and violence of humanity given a different technological basis and scale.
If you didn’t understand something in this sentence or have any questions regarding it, you may simply ask: I believe in my abilities to explain my ideas to those who don’t keep their mind closed. As well you may contest something you disagree with if you state it clearly for me, so I could provide counterarguments, and we’ll see whose point is theoretically stronger. As they say, the truth may be found in argument. And I am personally interested if people will point out on any weaknesses in my ideas, so I could fix that and use only logically solid, consistent and morally right arguments to combat gallente propaganda. The knowledge is the power.
At one point I was about to ask you about that philosophy.
But after reading the second sentence I somewhat lost this desire.
Let the Winds guide me to those who look for truth and keep me away from those who have found it.