Musings

Musings

Postby Glenn » Tue Aug 21, 2018 3:15 am

Gloria,

Take this journey with me. There's no one I would rather take it with:

You are you. I am I. Events shaped us into who we are. What if you were not raised a Jerno? What if I was not sold in the womb? What if you were raised in Myrken or here in Rasazan? What if you were raised by a family with wealth? What if I was raised by dark elves underground? What if I was raised by a loving family? A family of cannibals out of the wilderness, loving or not? We would be different, would we not?

Would we be completely different, however? I think not. I would still be slightly shorter than I'd like to be, plainer in appearance than most around me would prefer. You would have your physical bearings as well. The liquid blackness? Of that I'm not sure but I assume (and you should think me a bad friend if not bad former governor for not knowing this). This affects our bearings, how we interact with the world.

A man born blind is blind wherever he is. He may be treated more kindly in one place or another, may learn different skills and do different things to survive, but certain perceptions of the world will the same irregardless of all these environmental differences.

What then of someone who lives a much longer life than you or I? Thousands of years to our dozens? Obviously how this person processes the passage of time is different than how we do. How might this affect him no matter who raised him and how? What if the person has an extra sense, as Rhaena did?

Does my height or my appearance only affect who I am in slight ways, but our longevity or lack thereof or our imaginary person's missing or an extra sense affect this being much more?

What other elements can shape this? What can overcome it?

Can our mortality ever be overcome? Does that shape our inherent shortsightedness and our selfishness, our superstition and fear? Will we ever be chained by it as a people or is it simply a matter of producing the correct environment to render it meaningless? In such an environment, would we lose our dynamism and ingenuity? Would we become complacent and thus experience a fall that would drive us back into sparsity and a wild, bestial state?

It's something to think about at least. It's everything to think about, really, isn't it?

Glenn
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Re: Musings

Postby Rance » Tue Aug 21, 2018 3:01 pm

Glenn,

You choose a strange woman with whom to take this journey but I shall induldge it accordingly. I cannot philosophyse upon a wimm, for whether that is the dullness of my brain or the slowness of it, I cannot be sure. But for your sake I will try, though this first I must say:

You are a man who writes no words nor takes no steps lest it serves a greater purpose. This is not a criticism but that it is an observasion for yours is an existants of constant momentum. The questions you asked of me in your letter cannot trick me into believing they are innocent or late-night curiositys. You have catered them to me. You have chosen to ask me these because you have already predicted my answers. Do I consider you a friend, yes. And I have also come to know you as a man who against all rationnality cannot be and shall not be satisfied.

You ask me to hi h hip hopathesise forms of myself which I cannot see. For you see I am not a long-sighted woman; I do not imagine there is an instance of me which is not born Jerno, I do not imagine there is a one of me which was not raised by a meager cobbler; I do not imagine there is not an iteration of me which shall ever grow more than a few decades old (a Jerno is short-lived; we burn ferociously and fizzle quickly). It is this why I say that you cannot be satisfied: I, Glenn Burnie, am easy to satisfy. I harbor no great imagination beyond what is nor do I look between stars for other imaginary worlds. But yours is a head so often unattached from the reality of your body that I should think you would be happiest as a cloud or as a fog, that you might float incospeculously in and out of other worlds, minds, and vessels, to pick from them the challenges as you desire only to float on to the next.

You have chosen Glour Gloria Wynsee to ask these questions because in this moment there are few others around you who will struggle so profoundly with these intangibilaties. Whether I should be honored or unamused has yet to be decided.

And like the cloud or fog you are, you are also transparent, Glenn. For of all the questions you pose these are those which are truly most important to you:

What then of someone who lives a much longer life than you or I? Thousands of years to our dozens? Obviously how this person processes the passage of time is different than how we do. How might this affect him no matter who raised him and how? What if the person has an extra sense, as Rhaena did?

And here I shall tell you why. But first I must rest this hand, for you must know now that to write at length with but four fingers is a daunting task and one I would undertake for few people but you.

The page ends. On the next, her script is refreshed, the product of some time spent soothing the ache of her hand.

It is in those questions where you establish difference between the nature of circumstanse and our innate nature and its afect on our understanding. It is like this: whether I was born a Jerno, a Myrkener, or Razasani will only afect how I process the world. But only if I was not the human I am would my percepsions differ. To process the world as a Jerno or a Myrkener or a Razasani is to be altered by circumstance: my systems of belief, my culture, and my rules would change, yes, but I would still perceive the world as a human does.

Yet if I was something different than human, whether longer-lived or with a greater sense, if I was beast or animal, minute differences in the cultures would not matter. Does this make sense. It would be beyond my scope of understanding and thus it would be inconsequential and wholly unimportant to me

I find this difficult to express. So let me offer this.

To be a Jerno or a Myrkener or a Razasani, to be rich or poor or taller or shorter, this is but a staining upon the glass lens of the eyeglass of humanity. Perhaps a Jerno shall look through green-stained glass, and perhaps a Myrkener through blue-stained glass. Perhaps a tall man shall see it through red-stained glass. Perhaps a short woman shall see it through yellow-stained glass.

But to be something other than human, it is the eyeglass itself is differently formed: it is longer, larger, or more focused; it is stronger of vision, or altogether different shaped. The color of the lens does not matter, for the very structure of the eyeglass itself is the most dominant alteration. It does not matter if it sees in blue or red or green, but rather what is most important and differentiating is that it reflects the light through it in an altogether foreign way.

I do not make these comparisons to force counterfeit profundities; I make such comparisons that I may best embody the clumsy thoughts which are upon my mind. Consider the seraphs of myth: they have no need to see the world through human eyes, and yet we would take any opportunity to see the world through theirs. What need would a seraph have to be human.

So for all of your questions I ask of you this one: why is it that you ask me these questions, and not someone of greater intelligence or capacity. What need have you of my answers. And how many letters must we share before you attempt to convince me that I am entirely wrong.

Yours,

Gloria Wynsee
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Re: Musings

Postby Glenn » Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:05 am

Insatiable. There's a word for that Gloria. Let me teach it you. Insatiable. You're not wrong. My mind devours. If I do not provide it with certain stimulation, it'll devour itself whole. This is metaphor of course. It's strange that we live in such a world that I must make things clear.

That said, I do think I am rational. A hungry man is rational. A man with an affliction to make him always hungry can still be rational, so long as he is aware of it.

I write you because you are a friend, as you say. I write you also because I have a regard for your opinion and thoughts that makes false your claims of expected predictability. Still, sometimes going through the motions are enough. Sometimes, I need a thought bounced back in my direction so that I might engage with it more fully. For that, I could choose almost anyone. I choose you. Would it be so grave an injustice for you to find some sign of value in yourself for that?

No metaphor in this: you are no dullard. You waste both of our time by claiming to be so.

Back to my insatiability, for you will not so easily let it go, and I thank you for that, or curse you. One or the other. I could be a drunkard in this, needing more and more for my mind grows accustomed to a certain amount. I've lived this. I've felt this. Early on with Rhaena. It was the cause of many bad decisions. One reason why I boxed myself away is that I feared it with her loss, or something worse still (which I have also felt).

Of course, I would have denied lacking ration when I had none. Unfortunately, while I see you as a friend and while I respect your decisions, I do not see you, alone, as a proper judge in this. There are few I'd allow such a dubious honor. Were you to know me as you have known me this last year for another five, we could talk about this.

I do not think you easily satisfied. If that was the case, you'd still be in Jernoah.

I am transparent for I do not wish to fool you. I generally do not wish to fool myself either. If so, I would not speak so openly to either of us. I am also confident of your ability to learn to write with four fingers in time. You are a survivor.

As to my question and your distinction, it is an interesting one. Let us look at your lens. Different shaped lenses will reflect the light in a foreign way. You called this the most dominant alteration. Of this, I am not convinced. How are we to know that the different reflection of light is more dominant than whether the glass is red or green? What matters is what the light looks like in the end. Were we to classify all of its elements: brightness, color, shape, and so on, perhaps more could be in common than difference if things such as color could be controlled for. We would have to understand the exact weight of difference each factor had.

While I do find your argument plausible, and I think you for it, I do not find it wholly compelling without further evidence to support it. So I will not try to convince you that you are wrong, but that, instead, this is the start of the investigation and not the end of it.

Why you? There are many reasons for that. Here are a few. Yes, you are nearby. Yes, I have faith in your ability to think these matters through that you obviously do not. You are also from a very different culture than I am, yet have also experienced life in different cultures still. Moreover, you've encountered beings of different races. Even more than that, you've experienced different variations of change, physical, emotional, and otherwise, which all plays into this. I think you're a fine person to have this conversation with.

And I will write letters forevermore to convince you that you are entirely wrong of that.

Sure of at least one thing,
Glenn Burnie
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